In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns. In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.
Tamara Scott, an Iowa conservative activist and Republican National Committee member, invited Eileen Dannemann, who runs an anti-vaxxer website called the Vaccine Liberation Army, to her “Truth for Our Time” radio program last week to discuss Dannemann’s concerns about vaccines. (Scott has invited anti-vaxxers onto her program before; in a previous interview with Dannemann, she alleged that “socialistic teaching” in schools, not parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, is causing disease outbreaks.)
Dannemann told Scott that attempts to investigate a CDC vaccine cover-up have so far been quashed, but that things will be different in a Trump presidency.
“With Trump as president, with Carson as the secretary of HHS and with Christie taking Lynch’s place [as attorney general], we have a team here that absolutely will investigate the CDC corruption and the safety of vaccines,” she said.