Remember at the end of the early-80’s movie, War Games, when Matthew Broderick’s character David showed the WOPR how to play tic-tac-toe, and then how the WOPR learned the futility of global thermonuclear war by comparing it to tic-tac-toe?  And how WOPR (or Joshua) then commented on the futility of a game that can not be won (except by not playing), and asked David if he would like to play a “nice game of chess”?

I can’t help wondering if the whole vaccine / autism thing is an exercise in futility for both sides, a game of unwinnable tic-tac-toe, or if it is a game of chess, still in the opening phase with the middle-and end-games left to come.  And if it is a game that can be won, what exactly is it that the victors will win?