Have you ever wondered how the perception that childhood vaccines cause autism (and other developmental disorders) was started?

Check out The Panic Virus, by Seth Mnookin. I haven’t read it yet, but the publisher’s blurb (which I first saw on i09‘s site) sounds intriguing…

In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist with a history of self-promotion, published a paper with a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might cause autism. The media seized hold of the story and, in the process, helped to launch one of the most devastating health scares ever. In the years to come Wakefield would be revealed as a profiteer in league with class-action lawyers, and he would eventually lose his medical license. Meanwhile one study after another failed to find any link between childhood vaccines and autism.

Yet the myth that vaccines somehow cause developmental disorders lives on . . . In The Panic Virus, Seth Mnookin draws on interviews with parents, public-health advocates, scientists, and anti-vaccine activists to tackle a fundamental question: How do we decide what the truth is?

Also, check out i09’s list of science books for the others that they recommend for the science geek on your shopping list…