One of the most common claims made by anti-vaccination activists is that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines, has contributed to an apparent increase in autism. That connection has never been established. A 1998 study published in the Lancet, the British medical journal, purported to find a link, but was completely discredited — and in 2004 retracted by the Lancet itself, as well as by ten of the article's twelve authors. The study had numerous methodological flaws and one of its authors had accepted more than $100,000 from lawyers investigating a vaccine lawsuit. Dr. Henry Bernstein of the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases who believes that vaccines were "the number one public-health breakthrough of the last century," says of the discredited study, "it's pretty discouraging when something like that can lead so many people not to vaccinate their children."

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While research has found that too much mercury — in fish, for instance — can cause some cognitive problems for children, there is, according to an exhaustive 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, no evidence of a connection between mercury and autism. Indeed, in Denmark, autism rates increased after thimerosal was removed from vaccines. Still, as a result of widespread parent concerns about thimerosal, the vaccines that babies now receive contain very little mercury (a measure that the Centers for Disease Control took mainly to restore public confidence in vaccines). But the vaccine-autism connection still has vocal adherents — including some parents of autistic children, as well as activists who oppose vaccines for their own ideological reasons — and continues to be aired in media reports as a possibility. "His father claims Alex wasn't autistic — until he got certain vaccinations containing a mercury preservative," reads one of untold scores of recent articles and news programs that give the views of concerned parents and medical experts equal weight.  

Lorena, another Manhattan mother, also decided after hearing Dr. Palevsky speak, that "the body can take care of itself."Will this army of skeptics shake the foundation of mandatory shots? (She asked that her last name be withheld. "Dr. Palevsky made me paranoid," she explains, citing "stories of parents being pursued by the state.") Lorena, who has a one-year-old, does not trust drug companies: "I think they are unethical. Look what they're trying to do now [with the HPV vaccine] — make it mandatory for fifth and sixth grade girls to be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease! They're going to hell." She brings up the — certainly disgraceful — history of pharmaceutical companies testing dangerous drugs on people in the Third World. Like many anti-vaccinators, Lorena also believes that vaccines are weakening our immune systems.

Will this army of skeptics shake the foundation of mandatory shots? Is my playgroup hostess correct in her predictions of mass revolt? It's unlikely that the public health establishment will so easily give up universal vaccination — which has, many doctors agree with Dr. Bernstein, saved more lives than any other single innovation (with the possible exception of the decline in cigarette smoking). But my hostess is right about one thing: she's not alone in choosing not to vaccinate her child.