In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.
A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.
Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.
He is now Trump's secretary of HHS.
Autistic Self Advocacy Network:Today in a cabinet meeting, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised that “by September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we will be able to eliminate those exposures.” This alarming claim is untrue, impossible, and ableist. Like the hiring of David Geier, RFK Jr.’s comment is a clear signal that HHS intends to produce rigged and fraudulent research that supports Kennedy and Trump’s pre-existing beliefs in a connection between autism and vaccines.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: :And we have now the autism rates have gone from now most recent numbers we think are going to be about one in thirty-one from one in twelve. So, they’re going up again from one in ten thousand when I was a kid. And we are going at your direction.
We are going know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world. By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: So, it was one in ten thousand children had autism, and now it’s one in thirty-one. Not thirty-one thousand, thirty-one. That’s a horrible statistic, isn’t it? And there’s got to be something artificial out there that’s doing this. So you think you’re going to have a pretty good idea,
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: We will know by September. There will be no bigger news conference on that.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: So that’s it. If you can come up with that answer where you stop taking something, you stop eating something or maybe it’s a shot, but something is causing it. It can’t be from 10,000 to… can you imagine that, Marco? That’s a big number. Thank you very much. You’re doing great. Thank you, Bobby.
