Even though thimerosal--a mercury-containing and allegedly autism-causing chemical--has been removed from most vaccines, people continue to believe that vaccines cause autism. Why? The David/Goliath factor: big bad money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies vs. private-practice Dr. Dudenheimer. The general public is more likely to believe the friendly-looking Dudenheimer than the enormous corporate behemoth towering over his shoulder. But if Dr. Dudenheimer hears on the internet that vaccines cause autism and decides to test this, he will have some experimental bias. Say it with me, folks: BAD SCIENCE! The big pharmaceuticals will then have less power to debunk this; any attempts they make will reek to the public of the very bias that tainted Dr. Dudenheimer's results.
So the root cause of this disinformation can be traced back to fear-mongering and bias. Boatloads of bias.
I agree that this is certainly a problem, the general perception is that corporate fat donkeys (being politically correct here) will always skew results in their favor, but that Dr. Dudenheimer could be just as biased. However, every scientific experiment is biased, but different people have different biases. So if multiple separate experiments are done by different groups(such big corporations, Dr. Dudenheimer, his neighbor across the street, and the random guy he met at a cocktail party,) then we can at the very least lessen the experimental bias.
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