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Autism and vaccine 'link' debunked perfectly by 12-year-old video blogger

'It's your choice if you’re going to expose your child to deadly diseases'

Roisin O'Connor
Wednesday 01 June 2016 15:19 BST
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Child's vaccine and autism video is going viral - for good reason

A 12-year-old boy is receiving international acclaim for a video he posted about the link between vaccines and autism.

Marco Arturo, a science fan from Mexico, posts videos on his Facebook page to his thousands of followers.

His autism video had racked up 4.7m views at the time of writing. Marco claims from the beginning that doctors have been “lying to us” about vaccines, and has decided to do his own research into the subject.

Producing a folder labelled "Evidence That Vaccines Cause Autism", Marco tells viewers that he will read the "evidence" piece by piece.

"It's your choice if you’re going to expose your child to deadly diseases, but you know it’s not just your child,” he concludes. "It’s also everyone else’s child, because you read some forwarded email."

The video has been shared by more than 62,000 people, including actor Ashton Kutcher who posted a link on his own Facebook page, writing: "Hopefully this settles things."

Last year a major study published in one of the world’s leading medical journals concluded that, after a study of around 95,000 children there was no link between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination and autism in children.

Concerns over attempts to link the vaccine and the disease were reignited in April of this year when it was revealed that the life story of disgraced former surgeon Andrew Wakefield would be told on the big screen.

Hollywood screenwriter Terry Rossio, known for the Pirates of the Carribbean films, optioned the rights to Wakefield’s book Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines – The Truth Behind a Tragedy, along with his life rights.

Actor Robert De Niro came under fire in March for planning to show Wakefield’s own documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe at the Tribeca film festival. He subsequently pulled the film following uproar from doctors and researchers.

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