Vaccine-autism advocates: illiterate or mislead?

     I do not think it is accurate to claim that vaccine-autism advocates are scientifically illiterate, perhaps confused would be a more accurate term.  With all the controversy surrounding the relationship between vaccines and autism it makes sense that people would be confused when scientists can't even agree.  Although the relationship between early vaccinations and autism has not been proven, it is important to note that it has also not been ruled out as an option.  Autism is a complicated disease that deals with the developing brain and unfortunately this is when children are being exposed to these vaccines.  This is what makes studying this relationship so difficult and explains why scientists are having a hard time 
    An important fact to consider is the government's seemingly controversial role in vaccinations. If vaccines aren't harmful then why is it that the CDC tried to cover up the harmful nature of ingredients included in vaccines?  Why was the CDC using an invalid study (in which the "researcher" disappeared with the $2 million he supposedly spent on research) as it's source for proving mercury based vaccines were safe for children? Why did we remove Thimerosal if the toxic nature of the preservative was originally denied?  If vaccines aren't harmful why are we shipping them off to third world countries instead of using them on Americans?  Why did Bill Gates call vaccines a form of population control in third world countries when he said, 

                    "Let’s take a look. First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion 

                   people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job 

                  on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower 

                                                        that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent" 

in a Ted Talk about his philanthropy foundation's work with vaccines?

     All of these questions still remain unanswered, at least to the general public.  Without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I would like to put forth that there are still unanswered questions about vaccines and their risk/benefit factors.  Perhaps, they aren't causing autism, but the fact is that we cannot say that with absolute certainty.  
     As a science writer, taking all this into consideration, I think it is important that the proper research be done in order to clear up this muddy subject and hopefully end the spread of misinformation.  Knowing that people can be so easily persuaded by misinformation, it is important as a writer that intends to spread honest information that you check your sources.  We learned from several of these autism studies that it is important to background check studies for things such as: funding for research, sample size, methodology, replication of data, scientific validation in the community, and more.  As a science writer, we cannot also take research for granted.  It is our duty to find the correct information and make sure that is what is being spread.