Dr. Noel Alonso is a practicing pediatrician in South Florida. He writes a question-and-answer column for SunSentinel.com.

We asked him to weigh in on the retraction of a 12-year-old study that linked vaccines to autism.

On Tuesday, the British medical journal The Lancet retracted its 1998 study which had proposed a link between MMR, children with gastrointestinal symptoms, and the development of autism. This paper was for many the flashpoint in a debate that fired up passions on both sides and drew more attention to the entire anti-vaccination crusade.

All of a sudden, it became wholly unpopular to vaccinate. Battle lines were drawn, celebrities were enlisted, alternate vaccination schedules proposed, and the backlash was felt in doctors’ offices throughout the country.

The decision to retract the original paper will calm some fears but undoubtedly raise other questions and stoke the flames of conspiracy theorists everywhere that will see this as yet more proof that the government, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry are in bed together. Yes, there are some in my profession that have not honored the ethical standards that they swore to uphold. I am arguing for the vast majority that does.

I should probably start by saying that no one-size-fits-all mentality is appropriate here. As parents, you should have the freedom and ease to speak to your pediatrician about any health issues and feel free to collaborate with the pediatrician on the best management plans for your children.

So what does the retraction of this study mean for parents? It means that today parents can more confidently vaccinate their children and not feel as if they are harming them. It also means that this retraction is in accordance to the Special Masters court of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims which last year reviewed over 900 medical journal articles and concluded that there was no link found between vaccination and the risk for developing autism.

Finally, one can safely conclude that notions such as “alternate” vaccination schedules, “overwhelming” a child’s immune system with too many vaccines, and delaying or separating vaccinations into their component parts have no basis in scientific methodology, and therefore are of no proven benefit.

Of course, this means nothing to the parent of a child with autism. Even with the removal of thimerosal from vaccines (except the flu vaccine) in 2001, rates of autism continued to climb. Recent figures place the rate at 1 in 90 to 1 in 110 children. These are alarming figures, but the debate over vaccine safety has delayed funding for research into more plausible reasons for this increase.

Are professionals better at picking this up than they were before?

Is it possible that kids that were previously under blanket terms such as “developmental delay” are now being recognized as having autism as a result of more sensitive diagnosis?

Could there be other genetic or environmental factors at play here?

Whatever the reason, the role of vaccines in the development of autism has been dealt a major blow and will hopefully shift the discussion to other possible causes rather than random musings with no sound basis. But I am not holding my breath.