Autism rates are rising but Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of Autism's False Prophets (Columbia University Press, 2008) and most recently Tell Me When It’s Over: And Insider’s Guide to Deciphering COVID Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World (National Geographic, 2024), says scientists have already debunked theories linking the rise to childhood vaccinations.