December 13, 2024 - 6:30pm
In an interview with Time magazine published this week, Donald Trump mooted a review of childhood vaccination programmes when he returns to office in January. By way of explanation, he invoked the notable increase in autism diagnoses in recent years. “The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible,” he said. “If you look at things that are happening, there’s something causing it.”
Although he demurred when asked if he believed that childhood autism was definitely linked to vaccines, Trump said that he would be “listening to Bobby”. That’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr, his likely head of Health and Human Services, who has spent years talking up the link between vaccines and autism.
There is no doubt that autism rates are increasing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6.7 in every thousand American children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2000, but that had risen to 27.6 per thousand by 2020. In the UK, meanwhile, a 2021 study found that diagnoses had risen by 787% between 1998 and 2018, with one in 36 children now believed to have ASD.
There are three possible explanations for the rise in autism diagnoses, all of which may be true. First, there may have been an increase in accurate diagnoses due to greater awareness, an increase in the number of clinicians specialising in the condition, and an increase in previously under-diagnosed groups being able to receive a diagnosis, including the middle-aged, women, working-class patients, and non-white people.
Second, the rise may be due to “over-diagnosis”, with the definition of “autistic” loosened to encompass everyone from the severely disabled to those whose symptoms might more properly be understood as aspects of their personality, rather than a pathology.
Third, it may be the case that there actually has been an increase in incidences of autism due to environmental factors such as pollution, viral infections in childhood, vitamin deficiencies, increasing parental age — or even, potentially, vaccines.
As it stands, there is no evidence that vaccines are responsible, with a 2014 meta-analysis of studies involving more than 1.2 million children finding no connection between inoculations and autism
Unfortunately, this issue involves politics as much as it does medicine. And since both vaccine scepticism and scepticism about the increasing rates of neurodiverse conditions such as ASD and ADHD are associated with conservative views, it puts many on the Left in an awkward position. Since there clearly has been a massive increase in autism diagnoses, how can we account for it?
There is a long history of liberals and socialists expressing scepticism of state-led or -mandated medical interventions; many remain doubtful, even if they keep their views to themselves. Today, many people who might have taken up these issues only a few years ago won’t touch them due to their association with the likes of RFK Jr, Trump, and Covid conspiracists. This means there is a risk that, as with debates about the efficacy and risks of Covid lockdowns, important points are ignored because of the types of people making them.
It is also increasingly hard to argue that there are large numbers of people walking around undiagnosed. Despite long waiting lists, there is now a much greater awareness of the condition. This can be seen in the frequency with which ASD is invoked by defence lawyers, from those who stormed the US Capitol, to the rioters in England this summer, to a huge number of the alleged perpetrators of youth knife crimes, such as the suspect in the murder of Elianne Andam. Therefore, if the rate continues to increase over the next few years and decades, it will be increasingly difficult to attribute this to an rise in accurate diagnoses.
The worst-case scenario is that there might actually be some truth to medical interventions increasing the likelihood of autism, and that these arguments are not receiving a fair hearing due to the politics of people making them.
David Swift is a historian and author. His next book, Scouse Republic, will be published in 2025.
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SubscribeThere’s a fourth possibility for the rise in autism. It’s now known that early behavioural intervention (typically before age 3) can reduce autistic behaviour and, in some cases, result in a child not being considered autistic. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/autism/conditioninfo/treatments/early-intervention#:~:text=Early%20intervention%20programs%20help%20children,Communication%20skills
So perhaps societies used to naturally provide this intervention, effectively socialising some mildly autistic children so that they never became autistic. Society has now changed and consequently the autistic behaviour continues into adulthood, and there us an increasing number of autistic people.
I have also considered this as a possibility, but was cautious as it assumes there is an element of neglect in the parenting, and I don’t know anyone with an autistic child.
Has there been a study to see if there is an autism link between infants put into nurseries from 4-6 months onwards, compared to infants who remain at home with a committed full time mother until they start nursery school at 5yrs ?
I don’t think it necessarily means there has to be neglect, or that putting children into nursery rather than having them stay at home will prevent (or cause) autism. It’s not a case of blame or fault.
It could be something as simple as encouraging or allowing the ‘wrong’ thing too much, or not encouraging the ‘right’ thing, whatever the right/wrong things are. And it would only ever be borderline cases that would be affected, one way or the other. Children with no autistic tendencies or children with too much autism, for want of a better phrase, would carry on the same path regardless.
Fake Narrative. This is that whole “Denialism” label where somebody won’t rule out a cause or they question the total accuracy of an “established consensus” and get called “Deniers” or “Conspiracy Theorists.”
Ironically the author does the same when he says:
“Third, it may be the case that there actually has been an increase in incidences of autism due to environmental factors such as pollution, viral infections in childhood, vitamin deficiencies, increasing parental age — or even, potentially, vaccines.”
I am 62 and there are no autistic people in my cohort. We grew up with mentally handicapped peers but nobody with autism and it wasn’t under or miss-diagnosed. The mentally handicapped kids, even if not diagnosed are not present in anywhere near the numbers seen today. We should study autism with non-politized funds through the lens of science not under the influence of big pharma and settle it.
There have been extensive studies of the causes of autism, but those causes remain obscure. Big pharma has had nothing to do with it. The problem is that we have no way of conducting scientific experiments on human beings and the statistical studies we can do have limited value.
We do know some things, however. Statistical studies can show correlations between causes and effects. While the presence of a correlation does not imply causation, the lack of a correlation does imply lack of causation. There is no statistical correlation between vaccination and autism. As a result, we have proof that vaccination does not cause autism.
There should be nothing political about this. Science doesn’t differ between Republicans and Democrats. Politicians have no ability to interpret scientific data. Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy should no more be listened to regarding the causes of autism than Greta Thunberg should be listened to regarding climate change.
If you really want to touch off an inferno of controversy, point out the most likely cause, which does in fact correlate – advanced maternal age.
Very wealthy areas in the US, that tend to have two high earning spouses – the tech heavy hubs of northern California and Massachusetts, the suburbs of NYC, the research triangle of the Carolinas – have sky high autism rates.
Having your first child when you’re several years out of law school or B-school not only puts your fertility at risk, but also raises rates of birth defects substantially, from autism to Down’s syndrome to certain types of anadactylism.
Eggs don’t keep forever, in other words, though it may be unpopular to say so.
First definition of autism is not clear.
Second birth control and ultrasound machine etc may be more culpable than natural aging eggs. What rail trail did to the spine may be similar take here.
And thirdly, it could be evolutionary process and we are too conscious recognizing and not willing to accommodate.
The last one is defended because of ideas found in disable literature such society created disability vs deficit and ideas of being ablieist but AI coming in the pipeline maybe worth looking into it.
Unpopular, and politically toxic, therefore its never mentioned by anybody Democrat or Republican. There’s also the fact that there’s no point in mentioning it even if it is true and there’s a causal relationship. People aren’t going to change their parental, life, and career decisions based on a fractional chance of a child having a birth defect, and this is what we’re discussing, fractional probabilities. What’s more, their decisions are rational because the correlative factor between life success of the offspring and the wealth/earnings of parents is far greater than the fractionally increased risk of birth defects. That said, given that government spending and considerable outlay of taxpayer money is involved in caring for the disabled, the government might have a legitimate interest in using taxation, labor law, and other policies to enable women to have children earlier and make it easier to balance child rearing with career maintenance.
Well said.
Big Pharma has everything to do with it. What are you talking about. The extent of corruption within the academic medical community, especially in the US, and its links to big Pharma is indisputable. As for autism there is no decent RCT study that shows that autism and excessive vaccination are not linked. i.e. right now we have no idea and the honest thing to do is to admit this, and then do the correct unbiased, properly conducted RCT studies to look at the issue properly.
Doing a random controlled trial to see if there is a link between vaccines and autism would be highly unethical and impractical. Extensive statistical analyses of vaccines and autism have shown no association or correlation between them. Nor has any causal mechanism been shown. Applying the rules of causal inference, a link can thus be ruled out.
Andrew Wakefield was the doctor who first raised the possibility of a link between vaccines and autism. His work was found to be both false and fraudulent. But he is the only support Bobby Kennedy claims for the theory that vaccines cause autism.
Big Pharma certainly has its problems, but there is no evidence that they have hidden data or not done any studies they should have done. At least on the issue of vaccines and autism they aren’t conmen and fraudsters like Andrew Wakefield and Bobby Kennedy.
Of course one can postulate a causal mechanism. You do realize that each vaccination shot results in a major interferon-gamma inflammatory response (and this is larger, the greater the number of vaccines given at a single time) and that response will necessarily have sequelae. As for correlation, of course there is a temporal correlation since the increased incidence of autism is correlated with the massive increase in number of vaccines and shots in the US childhood vaccination schedule. This is why people are suspicious, rightly so, especially given the recent performance of the CDC over the last 4 years. That being said, correlation does not imply causation. Another correlation, of course, is with the mean/median age of mothers when giving birth. This is getting older as more and more women delay having children until their mid to late 30s at which time they are considered “geriatric” pregnancies which carry not only significantly increased risks for the mother but also a very significant increase in all sorts of fetal and congenital abnormalities.
But what all this does mean is that we owe it to our children to look carefully at far less aggressive vaccine schedules in other 1st world countries, especially since the overall health and life expectancy in these countries is actually better than in the US. For example, what in heavens name is the CDC recommending the covid vaccine and boosters for children 6 months and older, when children are not at risk of severe disease. Why are we vaccinating 1 day old babies for HepB given that the risk of contracting hepB outside IV drug use and unprotected sex is negligible. Why are we vaccinating for chicken pox when the rational is not a medical one but a convenience one as in many families today both parents work and a case of chickenpox would entail one of the parents taking off work.
‘His work was found to be both false and fraudulent.’ Andrew Wakefield’s description of the events that shaped his opinion can be seen if anyone would like to decide for themselves. https://vaxxedthemovie.com/dr-andrew-wakefield-deals-with-allegations/
I would question your ability to assess the prevalence of mental handicaps in society from your direct experience alone.
You can’t be diagnosed with a disorder that doesn’t exist. If you are 62, then you were born in 1962. Autism wasn’t officially recognized as a distinct disorder at the time, and wouldn’t be recognized internationally until the ICD-9 in 1978. Some doctors certainly did know about autism in 1965-68 when you would have been of the proper age for a diagnosis of autism, but probably not a majority of everyday pediatricians, particularly in rural and poorer locales. A child of your cohort might have been diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia or one of a number of other disorders that don’t actually exist today or just shuffled off into some special education program (themselves probably fairly new) without any official diagnosis. So when you say that there are no autistic people in your cohort, you’re right, but it’s not relevant. We forget just how far public education and the practice of medicine has changed just over the course of our lifespan. The world often changes faster than our minds can keep up with.
I would not worry about the arguments not getting a fair hearing; if the MAGA lot can produce some reliable evidence in favour of their theories they will eventually concvince people. The worst-case scenario is rather that the MAGA NIH will produce so much fake science to support their opinions that they mess up the scientific record. A bit less bad – but rather more likely – is that MAGA will not get any evidence, fake or real, but will continue to push their views without it, That could convince lots of people to stop getting vaccinated, with the resultant increase in disease and death.
If Bobby Kennedy is confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary, he will be in an executive position where he will have little influence on what the agencies do. He will, I confidently predict, fail at doing anything harmful or good. He’s a trial lawyer, and like all trial lawyers, he talks and talks and accomplishes nothing.
If confirmed, Jay Bhattacharya will become head of the National Institutes of Health. He will have more influence on the scientific work that will be carried out at the NIH. But he’s more solid on science than Bobby Kennedy. He is a professor of medicine at Stanford University, and he has himself been funded by the NIH and been on peer review panels for the NIH. He knows the difference between politics and science.
MAGA will have no influence on science. We are not the Soviet Union where someone like Trofim Lysenko can turn science political. People like Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy may meddle in medical matters, but they will get nowhere. Facts will speak louder than fiction.
In other words, it’s all bs like the rest of the maga movement, a huge scam that some aligned billionaires will profit from before it all comes tumbling down
No, the idea that vaccines cause autism is not part of MAGA. Bobby Kennedy believes it. No one else in the administration does. There is no evidence, scientific or statistical, to support that view. It’s not going to be government policy.
Unfortunately, since Covid the antivax meme has become a marker of tribal political identity on the right, in exactly the same way as with leftists and nuclear energy.
Remember when Trump was booed at rallies for promoting the vaccines he wanted to claim as his first-term legacy? This time he chose RFK Jr. to demonstrate to his followers that he “shares their concern” about vaccination.
Really. Remember Fauci and Collins, and the politicization of Covid, the mitigation procedures which were not only draconian but ineffective, and the vaccines which didn’t prevent transmission or infection. Recall also the politicization of nutritional science that led to the food pyramid in the US based on garbage data and resulted in the current epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes. It has taken 50 years for the various medical societies and US National Academies to even admit that they all screwed up badly, while destroying any researcher who object to the so-called consensus.
I think you are confusing science and public health policy. And that’s understandable, as the FDA and the CDC often do confuse the two. The NIH does better at keeping them separate.
You mention Tony Fauci and Francis Collins, but they had almost nothing to do with the public health policy during the pandemic. The NIH, including Tony Fauci’s NIAID, stuck to science. The vaccines passed the same Phase III tests of safety and efficacy that any new drug has to pass.
As to the FDA’s food pyramid and things like recommended daily allowances, they are not based on science but are public health policy that are based more on politics than any scientific grounds. I don’t think they have done much good, but I don’t think they have done much harm either.
The point I am making is that Bobby Kennedy’s rejection of proven science and promotion of pseudoscience disqualifies him, in my eyes, for the important role of health secretary. He knows nothing about science. He knows nothing about how to lead a large organization. He is a trial lawyer who lies for a living.
If Bobby Kennedy is confirmed for this post, I think he will quickly fail and be removed. I just hope the Senate is smart enough to reject him. I have to agree with Kimberly Strassel over at the Wall Street Journal, who in her article yesterday titled “The Great RFK Jr. Charade”, asked the question “Why won’t the Senate take an opportunity to save Trump from a bad political deal?”
“You mention Tony Fauci and Francis Collins, but they had almost nothing to do with the public health policy during the pandemic“ This is not exactly true. Fauci not only had, but used great influence over policy during the pandemic.
Tony Fauci had only the influence that others chose to give him. He himself had no power to do anything except give advice, not any power to put his views into policy. The NIAID, which he was the head of, does science, not policy.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of Tony Fauci. Quite the opposite — I think he’s a jerk. But he’s right when he says that he did not impose loxkdowns, mandates or any other public health measures. He had no power to do so.
From The Hill, Sept.’21: Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that conservative attacks on him are really “attacks on science” because he has been following the scientific process in his recommendations.
And from Science, April 2020:
Anthony Fauci’s burgeoning fame as a steady voice for science within White House corridors and beyond reached new heights in April, with the release of a raft of merchandise in his honor…..
With the greatest respect I don’t know where you get the idea that his influence was limited. Clearly you are keen to defend the status quo that ruled so disastrously during the pandemic.
My point is that Tony Fauci did not use his power during the pandemic as head of NIAID to do anything that was contrary to science. He did make recommendations and give advice, but people were free to accept or reject what he said. I think he was wrong in what he said, but he had the right to be wrong. We all do.
If you had read my comments here on UnHerd from during the pandemic, you would know that I was a harsh critic of Tony Fauci and I am far from a defender of the status quo. At the same time, I think these calls to prosecute Tony Fauci for some crime are silly.
Tony Fauci was well qualified for his job as head of NIAID. He never should have stayed in the job for 38 years, no matter how good a job he did, but his record was good. The hit piece book by Bobby Kennedy called “The Real Anthony Fauci” is more fiction than fact.
I think we can only agree to disagree on whether people were free to accept or reject the advice that Fauci vehemently claimed at the time were rooted in “the science”. He was hugely influential in stoking the fear and spreading the propaganda, people believed they could trust him and many did.
Just one last point if “The Real Anthony Fauci” is more fiction than fact
…. can you explain why the claims made in it have not sparked litigation for defamation, libel or slander?
You are completely wrong. As head of NIAID, you are right that Fauci had no power over public health policy. But as the top and most visible advisor to the President on matters of Covid policy, he had enormous power because he and Collins were guiding and directing the US Covid response. The CDC and FDA were doing what they were told by Fauci and Collins who were acting directly as the President’s advisors, not in their capacity as Directors of NIAID and NIH, respectively.
The CDC and the FDA had little to do with public health policy. That was handled at the state and local level. It has always been that way in the United States.
And federal policy (what little there was) was not set by Tony Fauci (and even less so by Francis Collins, who was never a presidential “science advisor”). They advised the president, true, but that was all. The directors of the CDC and the FDA ran their own agencies — the presidents Trump and Biden had little to do with them.
If you look back at the pandemic there is nothing you can blame on Tony Fauci but his giving bad advice.
“Just two weeks of shut downs, to flatten the curve.”
“But if you get this vaccine, you won’t get COVID, which definitely was not grown in a lab in China.”
“Also, this vaccine is perfectly safe.”
“White supremacy is a public health crisis.”
“Some men get periods.”
“Traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.”
“Polar bears will be extinct by 2015.”
We were repeatedly assured that these statements were also “the Science,” and were only questioned by knuckle- dragging Fox News viewers.
As it turns out, one’s political views don’t result in omniscience, but often enough in either error, idiocy, or both.
Sorry Rasmus but you are full of B…S. The important thing to remember is that the Pharma companies are not saints and they have been successfully sued for billions of dollars including providing false information to the FDA, kickbacks, falsification of data and everything in between. This is why honest post-market surveillance is so imortant to pick up rare adverse reactions. When it comes to vaccines this is especially important because (a) they are administered to so many people (i.e. close to 90% of the population), (b) it is difficult to pick up safety signals from relatively smll clinical trials; (c) you cannot have a situation where the trials are conducted by the Pharma companies or doctors linked in any way to the Pharma companies.
What you actually say in this particular post is fairly sensible. But it is still the case that the vaccine fears are overblown, and that the link to autism no more than a plausible guess where all available evidence is against it. Medical history is full of people following their intuitions without evidence, doing no good and lots of harm. For the rest I refer to Carlos Danger’s posts, I could not improve on those.
What exactly is that evidence against vaccines being harmful. It is just repeated and repeated but the evidence is very very poor. Repeating a falsehood again and again doesn’t make it true. All medical interventions have potential harms. It’s always a question of balancing benefit versus risk. And that’s a choice for individuals to make once they are provide with all the relevant information. That’s known as informed consesnt.
Whilst autism spectrum disorders may well be more accurately diagnosed these days, leading to greater numbers, that still doesn’t explain the lack of older people with autism, who we are supposed to believe were never diagnosed.
Past tolerance towards different personality types and general human variety, plus the social knowledge, folk wisdom and poetic culture of archetypes to negotiate this variety, have been absorbed into this scientistic diagnostic culture, which literally only deals in a small handful of approved terms, and then tries to crowbar any deviation from constructed norms inside this framework. No wonder rates of diagnoses are increasing – that would just be a circular aspect of the prevailing diagnostic culture.
“important points are ignored because of the types of people making them”.
Right. So let’s stop prejudging people by their “type”. In the past, people with valid arguments have been besmirched, ignored and much, much worse because they are too catholic, too atheist, too feminist, too non-conformist, too Protestant, too Jewish, too black, too Irish, too socialist, too conservative, too radical, too just simply different and not accepting the complacent narrative that the “moral majority” seems passively to accept, until they suddenly don’t and everything turns on a dime.
Today that applies to all of the above, to some extent, but also to the “anti-vax” label. I wouldn’t trust Trump and his acolytes further than I could throw them. Ditto Biden and his corrupt mates and family. Power, and money, corrupts. It’s time for decent, humble, courageous men and women with a sincere commitment to objective truth and their fellow man and woman to step up and take some calculated risks; and for the lookers on to listen without prejudice, and to face their fears that they might have been misled by false narratives.
It’s greater awareness primarily. Just look at how many mental health and behavioural categories there were in 1960 in the ICD (International Classification of Disease) and look now. Intuitively most of us can probably look back too at schooldays and now see that the problem kids, the disruptors, may have had something but all they got then was the cane.
Over-diagnosis may be playing a role too. Some professionals may have a vested interest esp in a fee for service system. Some parents an excuse because they find parenting challenging. A diagnosis though is needed in order to access support so there is a ‘pull factor’ too – want the school to provide extra help to your young one, get a diagnosis etc
There is a big difference between severe autism – someone who may be unable to speak, go to bathroom, etc and will need lifetime care and someone who may a more moderate form. One additional problem is the term is thrown around ignorantly by too many.
As regards the vaccine link – as Article states, there is no evidence, period. It won’t stop the conspirators though will it. They’re infected with another disease.
In a week when many Americans felt no real sympathy for a cold blooded murderer, yet limited sympathy for the UnitedHealthcare CEO victim, Trump and RFK ought to be asked much more pertinent questions about what’s badly wrong with the US healthcare system. There is anger and despair everyday which is why the reaction to the murder has been more nuanced. If these two care about the ‘little guy’ and ‘left behinds’ they’d be zero’ing in on this and the £22b UnitedHealhtcare made last year. Who’s betting they don’t?
My first child had his first DPT vaccine and became very ill indeed. No more DPT or MMR vaccines for my children from then on and no regrets.
My son is a scientist and is certain that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
The scientific studies proving there is no link are by their very nature reductive, therefore I remain sceptical.
My view is that it is possible that autism is a neurological faulty development in reponse to a variety of medical factors including vaccines, the contraceptive pill and antibiotics. That, gradually, generation by generation, the effects of these medicines on the human body have been affecting our eggs and sperm.
This theory of mine would explain why there is an ‘autism spectrum’, ranging from mild to severe.
It is interesting to note the many comments denouncing Kennedy for his claims – which he does not pluck out of thin air.
The fact is that over 50% of American children are suffering some form of chronic illness and this was not the case 40 years ago.
When I started teaching I had no children with allergies in my class. One child in the entire school- admittedly small – had severe eczema. By the early 2000s virtually every teacher would have at least one if not a battery of Epi Pens on their desk in case of severe allergic reactions being triggered.
Why such vehemence against Kennedy? Many people are thankful that at last questions are being asked.
One thing that has changed over this period is the number of vaccinations infants and children are subjected to.
For many parents and those who work with children there is a sense that investigating the root causes of these issues is welcome and well over due.
There’s no problem with Bobby Kennedy raising questions. That’s a good thing. There is a problem with him blatantly lying about the answers. That’s unacceptable.
Bobby Kennedy claims, among other things, that vaccines cause autism and he has proof of that. That’s false, and he knows it.
All I have heard from RFK Jr is that there are good grounds to be suspicious of vaccines esp as Big Pharma make so much money, have no liability, do all the research, disease rates for almost all such diseases dropped massively before vaccination started and there are many known cover ups of medical fraud.
Anyone unable or unwilling to consider vaccine damage does not deserve to be in charge of Big Pharma regulation.
It’s. not Kennedy who picks these claims out of thin air – the people he cites do.
Please could you give some examples to illustrate what you mean?
Having worked in education and children’s services for 20+ years mainly at the end of the last century, I’d say that the second explanation (over-diagnosis, or more charitably, a broadening of diagnostic criteria) is the most plausible.
Unfortunately, it is the explanation least likely to be empirically tested, both because to do so is methodically very difficult, and because it is the one most unpalatable to the many vested interests that now maintain the current theoretical status quo.
I would certainly agree with you regarding overdiagnosis and widening of definitions.
My daughter was recently diagnosed as mildly autistic at age 28. The only thing which differentiates her from the average person is a propensity for making detailed lists prior to a trip or an event in order that she doesn’t forget anything and has her schedule (she’s an elite level athlete so maintaining training schedules are mega important if she’s away from her base) absolutely fixed, along with a love of admin. Conversely she’s a talented artist and can be quite spontaneous.
In addition, I have been diagnosed as likely having Aspergers purely on the basis of my childhood iq scores (apparently if you have a high iq then you’re likely on the spectrum. ”
Both cases are total rubbish but add to the statistics.
I don’t know how we ever figure this one out. As mentioned in the article, there are so many factors. People choose vaccines because it is a tangible, obvious thing. A medical procedure. A needle gets stuck in your arm. Almost everyone gets them.
In reality, there are so many other factors that should be equally, if not more heavily investigated. Vaccine prevalence is far from the only thing that has changed in the last 40 years. Also, diets. Processed foods, tons of unregulated supplements that people put into their body, endless new prescription drugs, etc.
Average birth age of the mother is an interesting one, but seems like the easiest one to gather data on.
Environmental and technological things as well. WiFi everywhere, cell towers, microplastics and chemicals that leach into ground water, the list goes on and on.
I don’t know a ton about this subject, but it seems that there has been more investigation into the vaccine theory than probably any of the other dozens of factors, and as far as I know, nothing even remotely concrete has been uncovered.
Ad hominem fest
“Today, many people who might have taken up these issues only a few years ago won’t touch them due to their association with the likes of RFK Jr, Trump, and Covid conspiracists. This means there is a risk that, as with debates about the efficacy and risks of Covid lockdowns, important points are ignored because of the types of people making them” – which explains the moderate, detail-attending, non partisan title and tag line. What a hypocrite
As someone who discovered Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 30, I have to say I lean towards awareness of the condition among the medical and educational establishment being the predominant factor in the increasing diagnoses. You can’t diagnose a patient with a condition that doesn’t exist, and Asperger’s wasn’t added to the official DSM IV until 1994. The condition was first recognized by an Austrian doctor, Hans Asperger, who published his first research on the condition in 1940, during WWII. It wasn’t widely publicized by the mental health establishment or widely studied until the 70’s. I was born in 1980. Asperger’s was not recognized officially until the DSM-IV was published in 1994, when I was fourteen and already too old to be diagnosed. It was combined with autism as ‘autism spectrum disorder’ in the DSM-5 in 2013 where the ‘spectrum’ represents the presence or absence and severity of the several characteristics of the disorder. There were many doctors who were aware of the condition during my early childhood, but I, like many others, was not fortunate enough to encounter any of them. Autism was known about, but required a verbal communication deficit to diagnose, whereas I was highly advanced in my communication, when I felt like it, which was usually when I was speaking to intelligent adults, which psychiatrists and doctors tend to be. My parents and schoolteachers knew I was ‘different’, highly advanced in many ways and underdeveloped and immature in others but they had no name for my condition. I recall being examined by a psychiatrist of some sort on at least a few occasions, but very little came of that. He either didn’t know about Asperger’s or recognize the signs or possibly my father intervened. He had a strong and somewhat justified suspicion of the psychiatric profession as he had a vivid recollection of the effects of shock therapy (now widely discredited) on one of his relatives, I forget who. As a child, I dealt with it as some kind of personal defect in my personality or character. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what, and I had no way to know what I could or should do to ‘fix’ it. I was not myself aware of Asperger’s it until I heard the word Asperger’s on some TV show and looked it up. I often looked up the definition of words I didn’t know. Probably why I know so many these days. At any rate, I noticed how much the symptoms described my own childhood as I remembered it. I was curious enough to take whatever online tests I could find. I didn’t stop at one. I took all that I could find, and they all showed what I already suspected. The demon I had been fighting all my life, the thing that made me ‘different’ now had a name. I looked into getting an official diagnosis but at my age that would have been both difficult and expensive, and I had neither an excess of money nor any particular need for official validation. I had enough other mental health conditions by then that had been diagnosed that the absence of this one wasn’t likely to be decisive in terms of getting the proper mental health care. In any event, I was able to re-interpret and better understand many of the events in my life and the struggles I had gone through in a more rational, reasonable manner, which did wonders for my overall mental health. I still have limitations and I still struggle in some respects, both from my Asperger’s itself and the several comorbid disorders I developed in dealing with it in less than healthy ways. It’s not something that can be cured or fixed by any amount of therapy or any psychiatric medication.
Honestly, I find it somewhat bizarre that anyone doubts that greater awareness is 9/10 responsible for the increase in diagnoses. Almost nobody over the age of about 30 could have been officially diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and in fact autism itself was only officially added in the US in 1978 internationally, 1980 in the US, though it was more well known before that. Almost nobody over 50 is likely to have been diagnosed as autistic, and that’s quite a lot of people. It makes me wonder if this author did any research at all. The vaccines/autism debate has become a political lightning rod and there’s a temptation for political commentators to take on the issue without the proper background research, none of which is particularly hard to find.
I am thus highly skeptical of the notion that vaccines cause autism. It seems like an improbable explanation. Most of the evidence is anecdotal, but who among us doesn’t occasionally put his own personal experience ahead of statistical studies? Case in point, my mother did mention that I became extremely ill after one of my childhood vaccinations and so when she saw those headlines she made that connection. I tried to dissuade her of this notion as strongly as possible, dismissing the matter quite firmly, but I suspect she still harbors doubts. The autistic and Asperger’s communities mostly reject the vaccines/autism connection theory, some quite angrily.
Still, science isn’t fixed. The research of today can be contradicted or invalidated by better research or new discoveries in the future. Science must be, by definition, falsifiable. We’re all a great deal more aware of the possibility that scientific research can be influenced by money and power in both intentional and unintentional ways than we were a couple of decades ago. Big pharma surely has a financial incentive to avoid any implication that their products have caused major disabilities and open them up to class action lawsuits. Government bureaucrats considering the overall national health might ignore or discard any data that suggested vaccines cause autism on the grounds that a few kids with autism is better than outbreaks of contagious disease given how much healthcare is paid for by taxpayers. I doubt very sincerely that RFK or Trump will find any connection between vaccines and autism, but surely they will introduce some fresh ideas and encourage scientists and researchers to challenge the accepted narratives and question the status quo on many other issues as well. The system has been so thoroughly captured by a particular establishment and the grants and research are so driven by government and corporate incentives that it needs to be questioned, if for no other reason than to restore some of the faith we had in science and research.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us. My understanding of autism and Asperger’s syndrome is limited for the most part to the abstract, and it helps to hear a more personal account. You have overcome a lot of challenges, but continue to face more. Good luck to you.
The son of my former boss is autistic, and I interacted with him to some degree before I lost touch with him 15 years ago. I looked him up on the internet, and he is now 35, living on his own in Tokyo. He even has a young daughter. I’m surprised at that — he seemed destined for an institution. He and his family put in a lot of work, and he had a lot of luck.
Autism is a complex condition and the more we understand about the disorder and its causes, the better. People like Elon Musk with his social difficulties but tremendous success in business show that some cases are far from disabling. On the other hand, most people with severe autism have a poor prognosis. Life span for them averages about 36 years, half of normal.
Myself, I don’t get the sense that Bobby Kennedy and Donald Trump care about the causes of autism. Instead, they just want to find a disease or disorder they can blame on vaccines. Like you, I am skeptical that vaccines cause autism. In fact, it seems clear to me by now (for reasons I can lay out if you are interested) that vaccines do not play a role in autism.
Trump and RFK are playing to the substantial constituency that already believes in the dubious vaccines/autism connection. It’s a snipe hunt and a distraction but I can live with it so long as that isn’t all they are doing. I can live with quite a bit of frivolous nonsense if they are willing to also challenge big pharma and the insurance conglomerates on more substantive issues like banning the public advertising of pharmaceuticals, the pushing of high profit patented drugs, and the overmedication of Americans in general. The need to challenge the corporate and regulatory blob is far more important than wasting a few million dollars spent researching conspiracy theories and junk science.
Good points, but if two men are foolish enough to hunt the snipe of a link between vaccination and autism, I doubt they are wise enough to tackle the genuine, complex drug-related issues plaguing our healthcare system. Especially Bobby Kennedy. He’s a trial lawyer, and I don’t know of a single trial lawyer who did anything productive.
Of course much could come full circle when vax rates drop low enough to see frequent measles outbreaks and very disabled kids with complications on the rise…people have a short memory of this
As a gp in London I am quite clear that many people are now seeking an autism diagnosis (and obviously an adhd one) where symptomatology is extremely nuanced and would undoubtedly have been considered part of a spectrum of personality. Definitely an explosion of diagnosis. The gains to an individual in having a neurodiverse diganisis make this a very complex path as do the limitations of a state funded health service. NHS unable to manage the demand. This is clear. No doubt our education system similarly.
Evidence for vaccine involvement however is absent. I understand scepticism of big pharma but basic childhood vaccination has been highly effective
Since you are a GP in London, please bear in mind that the UK childhood vaccination schedule (and similarly that of virtually all the EU countries) is vastly less aggressive than that in the US. Just as a simple example, in the UK you can’t even get a COVID boostrer if you’re under 65, whereas the US CDC put the Covid shots on the US childhood vaccination schedule for children 6 months and upwards. Go figure.
I disagree with you completely. First, who says that Elon Musk is autistic or even on the spectrum. He’s a little awkward perhaps but not more than most people. He sure doesn’t appear to have any social difficulties though. As for vaccines, there are major issues, not least of which is that the vaccine manufacturers are indemnified. If there are no issues with any of their vaccines, let them be sued. Just because something is called a vaccine doesn’t make it safe and effective. Some are safe and effective, others safe but ineffective, others that are unsafe but effective, and last those that are unsafe and ineffective. And if you want an example of the latter you just need to consider Moderna’s recent mRNA take on an RSV vaccine which resulted in increased severity of disease in the initial trials that then had to be stopped.
How disturbing is it that progressive influencers feel better about themselves by hating on the disabled – such as spuriously suggesting that autistic people are more likely to be ‘conservative Extremists’ (as the FT insinuated without substantive support). In addition to hating on the Jewish people. And on men. And on biological women. And on those with non-favored skin tones. And on gays. And on lesbians.
Come to think of it, is there any category or group that is acceptable to these progressive influencers?
The only one I can think of is the group of people that consistently vote for radical leftists. All others are apparently ‘Extremists.’
Social media has been a Pandora’s Box sort of happening and hate seems predominant, the new technology has meant a new place for mankinds worst tendency to spread like a wildfire.
I am not sure that the Meta-analysis is worth much, since the universal application of the MMR vaccine precludes there being any control group. Same thing happened with the Covid jabs.
There is a huge problem with the dead vaccines that rely on adjuvants to “work”. Part of the problem is that the criterion for “working” – the production of B-Cell antibodies – is inappropriate. B-Cells are a short term phenomenon, whereas the goal of a vaccine is to prime the long term T-Cell immune memory.
The immune system is a superbly balanced system. Generally, it does not take notice of the non-replicating dead vaccine, because there is little danger that the pathogen will do much. So the vaccine manufacturer adds an immune irritant (aka adjuvant) that causes the immune system to take notice of lots of things. The trouble is, that notice is not just for the vaccine, but any other “foreign” matter.
The indiscriminate immune notice leads either to increased danger of allergies and autoimmune disorders, or suppression of the immune response to novelty.
Live-attenuated vaccines do not have the above problem. In my opinion, adjuvant assisted “vaccines” should be banned.
Disappointing how many here are unwilling to be open about vaccines. Almost all ‘traditional’ vaccines came in AFTER a huge drop in their diseases and with very little subsequent drop, Big Pharma makes lots of money from them and, since no liability law in US, at no risk, we all know that tobacco, chemical and pharma companies have all hidden ‘bad’ news.
So there are lots of reasons to be suspicious and carry out more truly independent research and that is before you even consider if vaccines are a good idea even if no adverse drug effects.
I’d be more inclined to be “open” about vaccines if the people pushing the “alternate postulates” weren’t cranks like RFK Jr.
Speaking for myself, I am certainly open to the idea that vaccines are unsafe, ineffective or overused. But as a lawyer I’ve studied vaccine development and distribution in various countries around the world, including the issue of why drug companies were given immunity, and I’ve worked on drug approval and litigation in both Japan and the US. And as a scientist, I’ve studied the safety and efficacy of vaccines using the core tool of epidemiology, causal inference.
Vaccines have been used for centuries. Today, not only are vaccines subject to extensive safety and efficacy testing regimes in each country before they can be used, but they are also carefully followed after approval as they are used widely in the population. The Covid-19 vaccines, for example, were given to billions of people (including myself). If they were unsafe, there should be evidence in public health statistics. As far as I’ve seen, no one has come up with any such evidence.
So I’ve seen nothing to justify “more truly independent research and trials” of vaccines or to support the wild assertions people are making that vaccines cause autism or any other disease. It irks me when people like Bobby Kennedy, who studied American history and literature as an undergraduate and then law but never anything related to health or science, think they can spot a problem that has eluded the notice of everyone else.
If you think vaccines are not a good idea, make your argument and let us know why you think that. Vague suspicions are not helpful. And realize that people who know a lot about the subject have been studying the issue of vaccines ever since Edward Jenner made the first one in 1796 and Thomas Jefferson, as president, personally vaccinated over 200 people including his slaves, extended family, and neighbors in Virginia in 1801. (Thomas Jefferson had obtained cowpox and asked his doctor to do the vaccinations, but the doctor was too busy. So the president did it himself.)
There were antivaxxers even back then but Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, brilliant scientists as well as statesmen, brought sanity to the argument against them. (Benjamin Franklin did not live to see vaccination, but was a strenuous promoter of inoculation.) Too bad we have a modern nominee for health secretary who is a smooth-talking (albeit with a gravely voice) snake-oil salesman with no knowledge of or regard for science.
A little knowledge is dangerous Carlos. The Jenner vaccine, it turns out, was not particularly safe or effective. For sure it was orders of magnitude safer than variolation (using pus from smallpox pustules), and no question it was a great medical advance. But lets stop repeating the “safe and effective” mantra.
You are right that I make vaccines sound like silver bullets when they are not. All vaccines have drawbacks as well as advantages. As Thomas Sowell says, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. That applies to vaccines as well.
So I shouldn’t claim that vaccines are safe and effective without making clear that that is a relative measure. In the case of vaccines, the standard is set pretty high, but any vaccine will cause some harm and no vaccine will be effective in all cases.
With vaccines, and with the inoculation or variolation that preceded them, one of the big advances was the recognition that safety and efficacy could and should be measured. The contributions of Cotton Mather and Edward Jenner were more in the systematic analysis they did than in anything else.
My beef with Bobby Kennedy is that he doesn’t recognize this scientific method and relies on the tools of his trade as a trial lawyer instead. He twists data and makes arguments to persuade rather than enlighten. That’s the last thing we need in a secretary of health.
The thought that a vaccine could have caused my daughter’s autism is obviously harrowing – so it’s understandable why this topic is so extremely contested. Just think about pediatricians who would have to come to the conclusion that over the span of their career they might have caused autism in some of their patients.
I am not inclined to believe this though. Firstly, from a purely anecdotal POV, I find it hard to believe that any vaccine that was administered to my daughter, while not causing any of the more severe symptoms usually associated with vaccines (like fever, fatigue syndrom, digestive problems), somehow did cause the highly complex condition we call ASD. But hey, what do I know?
Secondly, to anyone interested, I would like to point to this article on the so-called “Autism epidemic”, which makes a compelling case against viewing this as an epidemic, IMHO: https://www.autisticscholar.com/autism-epidemic/
That being said, I am not very optimistic this discussion will ever be solved. The MAGA crowd could do another round of intense research on this, sure, I would welcome this. If they found out that there is absolutely nothing to it, vaccine sceptics would remain vaccine sceptics nevertheless. If they did found a causal effect of vaccines, I am pretty sure the Pharma industry would find a way to squash that (and the Neurodiversity movement would surely have none of it).
PS: I would love to read more of Kathleen Stock’s thoughts on the topic of autism, btw (thanks for already pointing me to the work of Ian Hacking …). I am afraid ASD is increasingly becoming another battlefield of the culture wars, with a strong connection between the Neurodiversity movement and Trans Rights Activism.