A member of the Louisiana State Senate took to the senate floor to launch into a diatribe against vaccines. The Advocate reports Shreveport Democrat John Milkovich made several claims about vaccines that have been proven false.
"Many of you may know some of the leading researchers in America say that autism is a result of vaccination," said Milkovich, who said autism didn't exist when he was a kid.
No study has ever proved any link between vaccines and autism, said state health officials, and the one study that did claim a link between the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine and autism, by now-discredited British researcher Andrew Wakefield, was retracted in 2010.
Milkovich also claimed that vaccines used tissue from aborted fetuses and contained toxic metals. Thimerosal, a compound made up of mercury, oxygen, sodium and sulfur, has not been used in the MMR vaccine since 2001, according to the CDC. The CDC's web site also states that nine separate studies failed to find links between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.
The invective was brought about by a proposal from Sen. Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge) to expand a voluntary immunization database. No other lawmakers spoke about vaccines following Milkovich's speech.
Barrow's bill passed 27-10 and now heads to the House side for debate.
