Tag: autism and vaccines

Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s Autism Beliefs

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

I can’t even remember what I was planning to write about this week, so incensed am I about these comments that Robert F Kennedy Jr. (the US Health secretary) has been making about autism in recent weeks.

For those of you who haven’t heard, RFK Jr. has vowed to find the cause autism by September, as he believes that it is an entirely preventable epidemic resulting from exposure to environmental toxins. A vaccine skeptic, he plans to launch a major study to identify the right toxin to rid America of autism, going against the multitude of studies that indicate a genetic cause (he claims genes just make you more susceptible to environmental toxins🙄). This study is coming on the back of the Trump administration’s ban on research and services related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Naturally, the autism community is in uproar about these flippant, uneducated comments leaving RFK Jr. baffled by the “tsunami of anger” that has come his way.

Here’s just a taste of his comments:

“These are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

This sort of statement beggars belief… He has since clarified that he only meant the 25% of autists who are severe level 3, but that doesn’t make it any better. Let’s go through this checklist for a minute:

  • Never pay taxes or hold a job? My employers and Irish revenue would beg to differ (the latter have made a fortune from me!)
  • Play baseball? I could (badly) if I wanted to, but baseball is boring
  • Write a poem? I’ve written many (and this blog can attest to my writing skills)
  • Go out on a date? I recently sat through 32 speed dates (though it did require painkillers and chicken nuggets to reset after 🫠)
  • Use the toilet unassisted? Always- unless I need a hand getting out of a jumpsuit!

Every single neurodivergent I know will equally pass this list. As we have discussed many times on this blog, autism is a spectrum, you cannot make generalizations. We’re all unique and experience autism differently. Not to mention how damaging it is to claim that he intends to “cure” autism, seeing our existence as a problem to be fixed.

And when you think things can’t get any worse, it’s been reported that there are plans to monitor autism records and make major cuts to disability services. The National Institute of Health (NIH) is collecting private medical records to provide researchers with data for RFK Jr’s new study, with reports saying there are plans to craft a new registry to track people with autism🤦🏻‍♀️.

Compiling such a list could have huge implications for data security. Who’s to say this registry wouldn’t be made available for potential employers who could use it discriminate against candidates? As much as we’d like to believe we live in a society more accepting of neurodivergence, prejudices still exist when it comes to disability in the workplace. Whilst my current employers are very supportive (they’ve even asked me how to make the snacks more autism friendly 😂), I’ve had other experiences where I was discriminated against for my diagnosis.

Even worse, if this registry made it into the hands of criminals, they could create a campaign to defraud you, playing on your social inadequacies and trusting nature. It’s a disaster waiting to happen…

Just saying, it’s beginning to sound an awful lot like another person with harmful ideas who took a registry…

This will be an interesting story to follow over the next few months.

Hope you enjoyed this post (or at least my commentary since the subject matter sucks)!

Have a lovely weekend!

Aoife

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Vaccines and Autism

Greeting’s Earthlings! 🙂

Yep…I’m going there today- the autism vaccine controversy.

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This issue has been thoroughly debated by scientists in recent years, so I’m going to discuss this once, and once alone.

In 1998, the now completely discredited scientist Andrew Wakefield published this paper in The Lancet:

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Notice the word ‘RETRACTED’ in bold red letters.

In this paper, Wakefield suggested that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine is linked to inflammatory bowel disease and autism.

This is what I like to call:

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Subsequent to the publication of this paper, serious conflicts of interest and falsified data were discovered. This led to the paper’s ultimate retraction and Wakefield was struck off the medical register in the UK. Countless studies have endeavored to replicate the results of Wakefield’s work, but none have succeeded, proving that there is no medical link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

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Here are the real facts about the case:

Wakefield’s work had multiple conflicts of interest:

  • When the paper was first submitted for publishing, he failed to disclose that he was in receipt of funds (~£435,000 or $674,000) from lawyers acting on the behalf of parents that believed the MMR vaccine was harmful!
  • During the course of his investigation, Wakefield filed a patent for a new measles vaccine, standing to gain financially from the downfall of the currently available vaccine
  • Patients were recruited to the study through anti-MMR campaigners

Several ethical codes were broken by Wakefield when conducting his research:

  • Wakefield unethically collected blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party (reportedly for £5 a pop)
  • Patients were subjected to unnecessary invasive procedures such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies without prior ethical approval
  • The company that Wakefield sought to establish following the paper’s publication was to be headed by the father of one of the patients included in his study
  • Wakefield further tested out his new measles vaccine on a child without recording it in his medical notes or discussing it with the child’s GP
  • Most serious of all- Wakefield falsified and manipulated his findings!! It was discovered that Wakefield had either misrepresented or altered medical histories in ALL cases described in the study!

Aside from evidence tampering, the design of the study was quite poor. Wakefield’s research examined a very small patient cohort (only 12 children) using case reports- one of the weakest forms of medical research. Large scale studies examining hundreds of thousands of cases have not established a link between the vaccine and autism.

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Of the 12 children examined in the study, 5 showed signs of developmental delay prior to receiving the MMR vaccine, and a further 3 patients did not in fact have autism.

But what of other research in this area?

Studies which are often cited in the MMR controversy suggest a link between thimerosal, (a mercury containing compound), in vaccines and autism- a link which has been largely refuted. Additionally, thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in currently available vaccines- but autism rates still continue to rise.

Studies have also been conducted to explore the impact of the anti-vax movement on autism rates. These studies compare autism rates in those who did and those who did not receive the MMR vaccine. The result- no difference in autism rates between both groups!! 

Furthermore, following the publication of his paper, Wakefield proposed that 3 separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella was a safer alternative to the combined vaccine.

But did he have a point?

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Nope- in countries where the practice of giving 3 separate vaccines at 3 separate stages was adopted, autism rates continued to rise regardless.

So there we have the facts about the MMR vaccine controversy. If you’re still a little bit skeptical, I’ll leave you with one final thought:

Wakefield has repeatedly refused to deny or replicate the findings of his study. If there was nothing to hide, then why not prove his claims?

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Aoife

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