A 1998 study that sparked global fears that immunizations are the cause of autism has been debunked, retracted and now, labeled out-and-out medical fraud.
But public health officials, autism experts and parents of children who've been diagnosed with the disease say they don't expect a sudden increase in vaccination rates, which in some parts of Sonoma County are well below the state average.
"I honestly don't think it will dispel the fear," said Michele Rogers, executive director of the Early Learning Institute in Rohnert Park. "I think until we have the definitive answer for autism, parents are going to point to something because it's too scary and amorphous."
The idea that childhood vaccinations are behind a baffling increase in autism worldwide was sparked in large part by research conducted in 1998 by British doctor Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield based his findings on 12 children who had suffered severe mental regressions, which Wakefield blamed on the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. He suggested the vaccine be split into three separate shots and given over a longer period.
Other researchers slammed Wakefield for what they said were his shoddy research methods and for drawing such a definitive conclusion about the risk of vaccines based on such a small study sample.
Nevertheless, the research sparked global fears of the shots, leading to declining vaccination rates and in some places, a resurgence of childhood diseases that had been virtually wiped out.
In Sonoma County, the percentage of fully immunized students entering kindergarten classes has steadily dipped from 91.6 percent in 2002 to 88.2 percent in 2009-10, according to state records. In nine school districts, six of them in the west county, the percentage of fully immunized kindergartners is less than 80 percent, a Public Health Department analysis said. Two school districts - Sebastopol Union Elementary and Twin Hills Union Elementary - were below 60 percent.
Last February, the editors of the influential medical journal The Lancet formally retracted Wakefield's published research. At the same time, the General Medical Council in Britain accused Wakefield of dishonesty and "callous disregard" for the children enrolled in his study, and stripped him of his medical license.
Then this week, the British Medical Journal published an investigation in which they reported serious flaws with Wakefield's research, including the fact that five children enrolled in his study had previously documented developmental problems, despite Wakefield's claims that the kids were normal up until they were given the MMR vaccine.
Wakefield and his colleagues doctored the records of all 12 children, according to the analysis, which led the journal's editor to declare the study "an elaborate fraud."
Regardless, many parents are likely to continue to weigh the benefits of giving vaccinations to their children versus concerns those shots could lead to a life-altering illness.
Pam Wittenberg, who lives in Santa Rosa and works as a veterinarian in Lafayette, said some of her friends expressed shock when she told them she would be vaccinating her newborn daughter, given that Wittenberg's son, who was three at the time, had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism.
"I said, &‘Absolutely,'" Wittenberg recalled Friday. "I've never thought there's been a link between vaccines and autism."
Her daughter, who is now 5, is developing normally, while her son, who is 8, is enrolled in a Santa Rosa school operated by Anova, an education and therapeutic center specializing in treating children and adults who have autism.
Anova founder and president Andrew Bailey predicted that the latest debunking of Wakefield's research will lead to an increase in the number of parents who vaccinate their children. That is, except in the west Sonoma County, where Bailey said many people still harbor concerns about "big pharma" poisoning their kids.
He lives in Sebastopol.
"As a doctor at the infectious disease center in Philadelphia said, it's easier to scare people than it is to unscare them," Bailey said.
Even Bailey, who vaccinated both of his children, was unwilling to unequivocally rule out vaccines as a contributing cause of autism, which many scientists increasingly suspect has a variety of environmental and genetic causes.
"Until we know what causes autism and how to prevent it and how to treat it, we don't know whether vaccines or a combination of vaccines or additives is not somehow involved. That's what makes this thing so scary," said Bailey, who is a member of California's Senate Select Committee on Autism Related Disorders.
Dr. Mark Netherda, the county's deputy public health officer, said that it is "hard to prove a negative" when it comes to vaccine fears. But he said he's convinced no such link exists and that he has no compunction telling parents that.
"It's just a shame that this was allowed to go on for 12 or 13 years, with some people believing there's a link, and now, we have absolute definitive proof there is no such link," he said.
His hope is that more parents in Sonoma County will vaccinate their children and themselves in the case of whooping cough, which has made a resurgence in California and led to a number of children dying.
Netherda said between 5 and 8 cases of whooping cough were newly diagnosed in Sonoma County just last week.
"With kids back in school, we're seeing more cases," Netherda said.
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