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>"Here's a fact: The Lancet, a widely-respected (if not THE most widely respected) medical journal, published a paper theoretically linking vaccines and autism."

Peer review evaluates data and the potential impact of a study, and then decides if its publication worthy. What a peer reviewer very rarely does is to say, "Prove to me these data aren't fraudulent". One operates from a perspective that the data were gathered in good faith unless there is a reason to suspect otherwise. In the case of that study, the data weren't merely massaged and carefully selected to make a link that might not exist, they were actually fraudulent. They were made up with the specific intent to manipulate the peer review honor system so that some asshole lawyer and his clients could win a lawsuit against a drug company. It was fraud, plain and simple, and yet some people still look to it as if it is as good as any other study in any peer reviewed journal. Some things the science community is defenseless against. Fraud is one, but then I suppose most industries are vulnerable to fraud.

Meanwhile, you are incorrect. Thimerosal has never ever been linked to any disease, and it is completely nonsense to compare it mercury found in tuna. Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, as opposed to methylmercury, which is what's found in fish and is toxic. Just because they contain the common element mercury doesn't mean they exert any type of common effect. One need only to look as far as methyl vs. ethyl alcohol to know that. It was removed as a political move, because doctors really get sick of being sued, which happens to them again and again whether they are at fault or not.

These people are deniers in the same sense that people who don't believe in global warming, evolution or the holocaust are deniers. The data are there to evaluate and people chose to believe the opposite of what they say. In this case they say that the best way to protect your child and everyone else's from disease is to get vaccines. They don't see it that way so they must, by definition, be denying that this is the truth. The fact that they have concerns and medical data aren't super easy for lay people to understand doesn't change anything. All deniers have concerns of one sort or another.