Does RFK Jr. Cause Autism? Look at the Charts
How Many Kids Must Die Before We Learn that Correlation Isn't Always Causation?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, has single-handedly overruled scientists and doctors and instructed the Centers for Disease Control to tell the public that the “claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” This is nonsense.
It would be equally valid for the CDC to post the following statement: “The possibility that RFK Jr.’s nonprofit organization Children’s Health Defense causes autism cannot be ruled out.”
Actually, by RFK Jr.’s standards it may well be true. Here’s the evidence. Rising spending by Children’s Health Defense is clearly and undeniably associated with rising rates of autism diagnosis:
What could be clearer than that? No one disputes that Children’s Health Defense spent huge sums of money on anti-vax advertising. The conclusion is obvious, isn’t it?
But wait. Which is it? Vaccines or Children’s Health Defense? Actually, it’s neither, because what we have here is a good old correlation. We human beings are naturally prone to see cause in correlation, but it ain’t necessarily so. Suppose you’re a legislator concerned about children drowning in swimming pools. Along comes
Children’s Health Defense and shows you charts clearly indicating that, every year. drownings increase, month by month, as bathing suit sales rise. Are you going to introduce a bill banning bathing suits? Or are you going to investigate the presence of lifeguards at swimming pools? The former is mere correlation; the latter is a difference-maker. Lifeguards really do save lives. So do vaccines.
More to the point, despite the unfortunate correlation of childhood autism symptoms and first immunizations, we can be confident that vaccines do not cause autism. Why? Because scientists have searched, over and over, for a causal link, and determined that none exists. They have conducted 16 major studies, including a Danish one encompassing 650,000 children, and found no causal connection.
This should not be surprising. Unvaccinated children develop autism at the same rate as kids who get their vaccinations on schedule. While we don’t fully understand the mechanisms underlying autism, we know how vaccines work -- they prime our immune systems. There’s no reason to think that this would lead to autism. If it did, we’d all develop autism, because sooner or later either a vaccine or a virus will prime everyone’s immune system. The malarkey about preservatives like timerosal in vaccines being the cause can’t be right because it hasn’t been used in any vaccines except multi-dose flu since 2001.
RFK Jr. is playing a cynical game. Out of one side of his mouth, he says he’s not anti-vax, he’s pro-safety. But on the other side, he sets impossible “safety” standards like the one I’ve debunked above and scares parents away from vaccination. How many kids must die before reason prevails?
The deaths have already started. Elsewhere on the CDC site, we find that the number of measles cases is up six fold from last year to 1,785, spreading in nearly every state. Measles is no joke. Hundreds have ended up in hospital, many of them children. Yes, the very children whose health RFK Jr.’s organization supposedly defends. Three of them have died. In case you’re in any doubt about the cause, consider this: 92% of those hospitalized with the measles are known or suspected to be unvaccinated.
No one wants to put their kids at risk. But the truth is you have to choose among them. We’re just two or three generations away from a time when nearly every family had the inconsolable loss of one child or more to infectious disease. Those who didn’t die often had lifetime impairment. FDR was crippled by polio. My own father was deafened in one ear by whooping cough.
Yes, there’s some risk in vaccination. Sore arms, even a feverish reaction are common. But serious harm? Literally one in a million. Getting your children vaccinated is much, much safer than driving them to school. Don’t let RFK Jr. deter you. All six of his kids are vaccinated. Make sure yours are, too.
I am confident that every single one of Drumpf’s appointees was deliberately and maliciously chosen to own us Libs, and RFK Jr is the prime example. The man is nuts! By his own proud admissions, he does nutty things with bears and whales. By being incautious with his diet in third-world nations, he acquired a parasitic worm in his brain. By the time it was discovered, it was dead, but the damage it did was permanent. After experiencing cognitive issues, including memory loss and brain fog, doctors initially suspected a tumor but later determined the abnormality on his scan was likely a dead parasite. I submit that the source of all his current nuttiness is that damn’ worm.