Autism blamed on tobacco

Suppose that Andrew Wakefield (or some other researcher) blamed autism on maternal smoking instead of infant vaccination. How would things be different
 
It's still a load of absolute bullshit, but a more widely accepted load of bullshit (seeing as this is when America started cracking down on smoking and what not).

Still a load of delusional crap though. And when parents stop smoking when pregnant and their kids still end up autistic, the whole credibility thing will go straight to hell.
 

NothingNow

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It's still a load of absolute bullshit, but a more widely accepted load of bullshit (seeing as this is when America started cracking down on smoking and what not).

Still a load of delusional crap though. And when parents stop smoking when pregnant and their kids still end up autistic, the whole credibility thing will go straight to hell.

Nah, then it'd be spun as a contributing factor. But the science was bullshit to begin with.
 
This might be more plausible than OTL...I could just imagine some anti-smoking researcher hoaxing up such a report, but why would a researcher go against vaccines?
 
Pretty near impossible I'd have though, there'd be enough non-smoking mothers to utterly deride any such claim. Of course, it would get the bonehead discredited earlier and not lead to mothers distrusting vaccines, so it'd be all good.
 
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Honestly if there is a bigger and more glaring symptom of the damage being done to America by the hysterical anti-science movement than the Anti-Vaxxers, I cannot think of it.

What the hell was ANdrew Wakefield thinking?
 
The long-term consequences could be terrible, as many people will associate warning of the dangers of tobacco with quackery.
Unlikely, by 1998 you'd have a damn hard time denying that smoking causes all kinds of issue, like lung cancer and that.
 
Unlikely, by 1998 you'd have a damn hard time denying that smoking causes all kinds of issue, like lung cancer and that.
That's true enough, look at how hard it is to convince the anti-vaxxers that they're endangering their own kids and other kids based o nthe fraudulent work of a lying quack.
 
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