Donald Trump took opportunity of the Republican debate and expounded his concerns on the thoroughly discredited claim that vaccines cause autism.

The theory was established in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield; however, it was debunked by numerous scientific reports submitted by the Institute of Medicine and the CDC.

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Forbes explains that Trump's comments were nutty and dangerous, but Ben Carson's response was, in some ways, worse. Carson could have been effective in setting the record right owing to his medical credentials; however, he failed.

The anti-vaccinationist Trump expresses his harrowing views, "You take this little beautiful baby and you pump," he said. "We had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2 years old, a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic."

What is really disappointing was the response from Ben Carson, who was a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He had a chance to immediately recant the theory of vaccination causing autism; however, he chose to make claims that come right out of the anti-vaccination playbook, with the basis of the "too many, too soon" campaign launched by Jenny McCarthy's Generation Rescue, the country's leading anti-vaccine activist group.

"We have extremely well-documented proof that there's no autism associated with vaccination, but it is true that we are probably giving way too many in too short a period of time," Dr. Carson said. "I think a lot of pediatricians now recognize that and are cutting down on the number and the proximity in which those are done."

Dr. Rand Paul, ophthalmologist, too failed to take back Trump's anti-vaccination claims. "One of the greatest medical discoveries of all time were vaccines," he said. "I'm for vaccines, but I'm also for freedom. Even if the science doesn't say bunching them up is a problem, I ought to be able to spread my vaccines out a little bit, at the very least."

According to the New York Times, Dr. Carson suggested at the debate that only vaccines that 'prevent death or crippling' were very important. "There are a multitude of vaccines which probably don't fit in that category, and there should be some discretion in those cases," he said.

To this Dr. Offit replied, "But of the 14 preventable diseases that young children are vaccinated against, the only one you could reasonably say does not kill is mumps. And mumps can cause permanent deafness and sterility in men after puberty." He also explained, "The other 13 diseases can be deadly. Tetanus kills, rubella kills unborn children, measles kills, hepatitis B virus kills."

Doctors watching the debate were in despair as these high-profile doctors seemed to delay the endorsement of the said vaccination.

TagsAutism-Vaccine Theory, donald trump, Republican Debate 2015, Anti-Vaccination, autism causes