In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. And among those diseases could be COVID-19.
Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong.
A nonprofit group founded by prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing Rutgers University over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Children’s Health Defense filed the lawsuit Monday on behalf of 18 Rutgers students. The plaintiffs argue that the university’s policy, which requires all students to be fully vaccinated for the fall semester, is illegal and “an affront to human dignity and personal freedom because it violates our basic right to control our bodies.“
It appears unlikely that the legal challenge will prove successful. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a similar challenge that eight students brought against Indiana University’s vaccine mandate.
There is arguably no one who has done more to spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and hesitancy than Kennedy Jr., the son of former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and an environmental lawyer. He has peddled a number of debunked conspiracies about all sorts of vaccines, including that they cause autism.
