The changes in definitions, possible increases in diagnosis, etc. regarding autism explain only a fraction of the explosive increase in that disorder. As mentioned, the incidence as reported was 1 in 10,000 and now it's 1 in 110. That's a huge increase which cannot be explained away by marginal factors such as "parents who want their doctors to give them that diagnosis" or "there are more trained doctors today that recognise it so it may have gone undiagnosed before..." Until you can actually quantify what contribution these tiny contributors add to the total we must consider the figures as reported to be largely accurate.
Additionally it is mistaken to assume that doctors twenty or thirty years ago practiced less competently than today. As someone who's worked in medicine I consider that standard medical practice today is less competent than what it has been in the past, at least in the U.S.
Another controversy that illustrates this and is related to the vaccinations argument is the widespread use of drugs which have no proven medical benefit. I'm talking about the two most widely prescribed catagories of prescribed drugs - Sarotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, and Statins.
Statin drugs are widely prescribed because they are effective in reducing cholesterol levels, but the patients who use them have the same incidence of heart attack and stroke as patients who don't.
Statin drugs [and reducing cholesterol levels in patients who use them] have proven almost useless in treating the effects of coronary artery disease. Yet standard practice MDs continue to prescibe them [and their manufacturers continue to re-introduce them] because doing so is standard medical practice which the MDs are afraid to deviate from in any manner.
Similarly Sarotonin increasing drugs have been shown time and time again to be no more effective in altering mood than placebos. Yet MDs continue to use them because they have been enshrined into the pantheon of standard medical practice in the U.S.
The fact is that standard practice is now determined by falsified safty and efficacy studies produced by the drug manufacturers when their drugs are submitted for approval. Once the falsified studies are accepted by the FDA [a totally corrupt and incompetent agency] then all MDs have to follow in line or they risk their licenses being revoked, or losing malpractice suits.
Unfortunately the profit motive in medical manufacturing has led to the falsification of studies and manufacturing records pretty much across the board. In my seven years in quality manufacturing at Sulzer I witnessed massive falsification of studies and manufacturing records, and I don't think that company was worse than others. People came to us from other companies and did exactly the same things they did where they came from.
Most of the new vaccines have no more proven effecacy than statins or Prozac, and are being pushed on the public for the same reasons. Standard medical practice in the last twenty years is gone down the drain, just as standard banking practices have [witness the massive fraud in phoney securities] or journalistic practices have [they all drank the coolaid on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction]. In every walk of life in America the professions today are less competent than in the past, and it's always for the same reason...new ways of thinking up scams that they can get away with. If you don't believe this then answer this - would there have been a Berie Madoff, or an Enron, or a Worldcom thirty years ago? Hell No! Most people in the past had some minimal level of honor and decency that most people today are clearly lacking.
Regarding the conclusiveness of studies "proving" no link between vaccinations and autism, you have to examine these studies carefully to see what actual claims they purport to be refuting.
The link between CNS damage in the U.S. and the new vaccination practices here is theoretical, yet at this time has strong explainitory power, enough for me to conclude that it is the likely expalaination.
Unlike laboratory experimentation, epidemiological study relies soley on what is observed in the public. It is restricted in drawing it's conclusions based on factors which are observed in the public at large. Unlike other scientific study it cannot make repeatable experiments.
ABT what you are asking for is for thousands of children to be put into a controled study where some are given standard vaccines and others not and then see what happens. That is not practical in this situation. We have to draw our conclusions on epidemiology as best we can, and try to do our best under these limitations.
Of course there is always some doubt in this kind of analysis, but that's why I started this thread by posing a question...because of that unavoidable doubt.
I don't claim to know the answer absolutely, but I think the circumstance are compelling.