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none of these studies make that conclusion, they all state that no connection was found (which is not the same thing)

You can make the same argument in favor of Astrology.

none of these studies, that I have seen, have sufficient statistical power to identify this kind of problem in a small subset of the population

I don't know the statistics, but I doubt a single peer-reviewed journal article, let alone the numerous journal articles that have found no connection, would be published without a sufficient sample size to make its case. Certainly the number of diagnoses of autism is not small, nor is the number of children who have been vaccinated.

As someone said at the beginning of this thread, none of the data will ever suffice to persuade a true believer. As a person with autism in the family, I certainly hope that science can lead to cures just as social or mental-heath therapies can help with mitigation of the symptoms.

But as a scientist, I also realize that it is vital to let the evidence speak. The evidence continues to be that no connection has been found.

I do not want to risk deceiving myself with false hopes when there is real hope that science can find the real evidence of a cause.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)