Is there a link between vaccines and autism?

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I have been looking at the research between autism and vaccines for the past ten years, and while medical researchers continually say that autism rates are merely a genetic phenomenon, wutg autism being an “epidemic” and all.   The Autism Research Insititute posts a graph on its website that is worth looking at; it tracks the rates of autism onset at 18 months to the introduction of vaccines.  Take a look and see what you think:

Graph showing the increased rate of autism diagnosis in the US

Medical officials claim that “since autism starts at about 18 months, when the MMR shot is typically given, the parents are mistaken in their belief that the MMR caused their children’s autism.

However, data collected by the ARI since the 1960s reveal that the onset of autism at 18 months is a recent development. Parent reports show that from the 1960s through the early 1980s, children autistic from birth outnumbered by 2 to 1 those with onset at 18 months. Starting in the early 1980s, when the MMR triple vaccine was introduced, the picture has reversed; now the “onset at 18 months” children outnumber the “onset at birth” by 2 to 1.