By SABRINA TAVERNISE and CATHERINE SAINT LOUISSEPT. 17, 2015
When Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist in Tennessee, flicked on the television last night to catch the end of the Republican debate, he watched a scene that felt unsettlingly familiar: A candidate was talking about vaccines and autism.
Dr. Schaffner has spent much of his career trying to debunk the contention that childhood shots can cause serious medical conditions, but he had hoped that national soul-searching this year after an outbreak of measles at Disneyland had moved the country past some of these old notions.
“I think it’s sad,” said Dr. Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, who said he cringed through the autism exchange at the end of the debate. “I would have hoped, since two of the discussants were physicians, that there would have been a ringing discussion about safety and value of vaccines, and an affirmation of the schedule set out by the American Academy of Pediatrics.”
