In a commentary piece on her website, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson makes the case that the mainstream media is jumping the gun in reporting that the science is settled in showing no link between vaccines and Autism by omitting important details from their reports.

Attkisson points out that the media ran too quickly with headlines of a latest study released finding no link between the two, but said they didn't tell the full story:

What you didn’t learn on the news was that the study was from a consulting firm that lists major vaccine makers among its clients: The Lewin Group.

That potential conflict of interest was not disclosed in the paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine; the study authors simply declare “The Lewin Group operates with editorial independence.”

(As an aside, according to OpenSecrets.org, The Lewin Group’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, is a key government partner in Obamacare. Its subsidiary QSSI was given the contract to build the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website. One of its top executives and his family are top Obama donors.)

Attkisson doesn't believe that a conflict of interest is an automatic disqualification, but points out the "important context" it reveals of the relationship between pharmaceutical corporations and its government partners.

She is clear to point out: "[N]o study to date conclusively proves or disproves a causal link between vaccines and autism and -- despite the misreporting -- none has claimed to do so."

In what she calls "The Astroturf Propaganda Campaign," Attkisson argues that research done by 21 "peer-reviewed" researches she lists have found "possible links" but they are ignored because they aren't "endorsed [or] promoted by the government." Furthermore, bloggers and propagandists often "claim no such studies exist."

Attkisson writes:

It’s theoretically possible that all of the studies supporting a possible link between vaccines and autism are wrong. And, if the propagandists are to be believed, each of the researchers is an incompetent crank, quack, nut or fraud (and, of course, “anti-vaccine” for daring to dabble in research that attempts to solve the autism puzzle and leads to vaccine safety issues). The scientists and their research are “controversial,” simply because the propagandists declare them to be.

The disparaged scientists include well-published neurologists, pharmacists, epidemiologists, immunologists, PhD’s, chemists and microbiologists from places like Boston Children’s Hospital, Horizon Molecular Medicine at Georgia State University, University of British Columbia, City College of New York, Columbia University…[continues]

Their work is, at best, ignored by the media; at worst, viciously attacked by the predictable flock of self-appointed expert “science” bloggers who often title their blogs with the word “science” or “skeptics” to confer an air of legitimacy.

Attkisson then lists at least 17 offenders in the "Astroturf movement" who are tied in with the vaccine/government alliance. Then sets her sights, again, on the media: "[R]eporters who don’t do their homework will conduct an Internet search, run across the blogs with science-y sounding names, and uncritically accept their word as if it’s fact and prevailing thought."

Attkisson provided "a small sampling" of studies dating back to 1998 that show possible links to autism from vaccinations, as well as "permanent brain damage" -- even one story that revealed the government kept a case held from the public in which they awarded millions of dollars to one woman after they admitted her brain injuries were triggered by vaccines.

But it's the other stories, Attkisson says, that pop up first in Google searches. She blames the media for running with those and not making the connections that many experts called in to back up those claims are often well compensated by the vaccine industry.

She concludes:

But to the news: none of that matters.

The supposedly best medical experts in the world who deny vaccines have anything to do with autism remain at an utter loss to explain this generation’s epidemic. To declare the science “settled” and the debate “over” is to defy the plain fact that many scientists worldwide are still sorting through it, and millions of people are still debating it.

The body of evidence on both sides is open to interpretation. People have every right to disbelieve the studies on one side. But it is disingenuous to pretend they do not exist.