Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician, vaccine inventor and famous backer of childhood vaccines, has tackled the much-debated 'vaccinations and autism' issue in his book, "Autism's False Prophets," which has received tremendous response.

Discrediting Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study, which associated autism in children with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, Offit has condemned organized factions that 'misguide' parents and suggest that vaccination of the children should be avoided.

Unfounded fears about vaccines have already resulted in a noticeable drop in vaccination rates in developed countries, bringing around the reappearance of dreaded diseases like measles. While nearly 197,000 people worldwide fell prey to measles in 2007, England and Wales reported 1,300 measles cases last year.

Figures like these cause alarm in the public health offices, though officials repeatedly say that there is no apparent link between vaccination and autism, and that the scientific view clearly pro-vaccination.

Quite a few vaccine-doubters think that federal health agencies and doctors - like Offit, who helped in the making of Merck's Rotateq vaccine - are hand in glove with the makers of the vaccines to conceal their so-called dangers.

A special US federal court ruling last week went against three families who asserted that autism in their children resulted from vaccines. Offit is optimistic that such rulings and countless scientific reports would bring back the parents' doubtless confidence in the vaccines!