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.
Lawrence M. Krauss writes at The New Yorker:
Often, Trump is simply wrong about science, even though he should know better. Just as he was a persistent “birther” even after the evidence convincingly showed that President Obama was born in the United States, Trump now continues to propagate the notion that vaccines cause autism in spite of convincing and widely cited evidence to the contrary. (As he put it during a Republican debate, last September, “We’ve had so many instances. . . . A child went to have the vaccine, got very, very sick, and now is autistic.”)Dr. Amy Tuteur writes:
Both Trump and anti-vaxxers aren’t merely evidence resistant; they are fact resistant. However, a good portion of what appears to be blatant lying by Trump or anti-vaxxers is more properly described as “bullshitting.” To lie, one must be aware of the truth; bullshitting, in contrast, is a form of arrogant ignorance. Trump and anti-vaxxers often have no knowledge of a particular issue. Rather than acknowledge that (or correct it), they issue streams of blather meant to dazzle equally ignorant listeners.
