{"id":20666,"date":"2025-09-16T21:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/20666\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:41:07","slug":"is-there-a-link-between-global-vaccinations-and-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/20666\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there a link between global vaccinations and autism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., says he will make an\u00a0announcement this month<\/a>\u00a0highlighting the causes of autism. But based on his past statements, he has already made up his mind. If there were a causal relationship, one would expect that those countries with the highest vaccination rates would have the highest percentage of autism cases. Do they?<\/p>\n

Kennedy has spent years challenging accepted medical thinking on vaccines, fluoride and many other topics. In 2023, for example, he went on Fox News and\u00a0told host Jesse Watters<\/a>, \u201cI do believe that autism comes from vaccines.\u201d\u00a0And he told an\u00a0audience in 2015<\/a>, \u201cThey [children] get the shot, that night they have a fever of 103 [degrees], they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a Holocaust, what this is doing to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, no one can accuse Kennedy of understatement. He later apologized for equating childhood vaccinations with the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0vaccines-cause-autism story<\/a>\u00a0got its start in 1998 when Dr. Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital in London published a paper in the British medical journal The Lancet. Of the 12 children he had studied who received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, the parents of eight of them claimed their child had developed autism after vaccination. Even though The Lancet later retracted the article and rejected its conclusion after a significant backlash from the scientific community, others embraced the story. And it has garnered a small but vocal following, including Kennedy.<\/p>\n

The secretary is correct when he claims that the number of U.S. autism cases has increased significantly.\u00a0According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>, in 2000, one child out of every 150 births was on the autism spectrum. By 2022 it was one in 31 births. But is that a result of widespread vaccinations, or is it a broader definition of and better detection of autism?<\/p>\n

World Population Review separately tracks both\u00a0vaccination<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0autism rates<\/a>\u00a0by country. The large majority of countries have 90 percent or more of their childhood populations vaccinated for diseases such as diphtheria, measles, polio, etc. There are exceptions, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South America and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

But although the vaccination rates don\u2019t vary much among most countries, the percentage of the population diagnosed with autism does. For example, China has a 97 percent vaccination rate but only 638 autism cases per 100,000 population. The U.S. has a 94 percent vaccination rate but 1,050 autism cases per 100,000. Brazil\u2019s vaccination rate (90 percent) isn\u2019t much lower than the U.S., but it has only 606 autism cases per 100,000.<\/p>\n

Or take neighboring Argentina and Chile. Chile has a vaccination rate of 96 percent versus Argentina\u2019s of only 66 percent. Yet Chile has 1,060 autism cases per 100,000 versus Argentina with 1,030. And most of Europe has vaccination rates similar to the U.S. but autism rates that are 30 percent to 40 percent lower.<\/p>\n

Of course, several factors could affect the number of reported autism cases in any given country, including access to health care and just how proactively health care providers look for and recognize autism. Several\u00a0autism experts argue<\/a>\u00a0that the increase in autism prevalence over time is a result of the United States doing a much better job looking for and identifying autism cases. But genetics and other factors may also play a role in the increase.<\/p>\n

One of the concerns raised by vaccine critics is that thimerosal, a Mercury-based preservative used in vaccines for decades, was causing autism. Even though scientists studying vaccines could find no link between\u00a0thimerosal and autism<\/a>, vaccine makers stopped using it in children\u2019s vaccines in 2001. So that can\u2019t explain the current rise in cases, either.<\/p>\n

Another point. If there appeared to be a connection between vaccines and autism, you would expect the autism advocacy organizations to speak out against vaccines. Yet it\u2019s just the opposite.\u00a0Autism Speaks<\/a>, one of the leading autism advocacy organizations, writes, \u201cThe result of this research is clear: vaccines do not cause autism.\u201d And the National Autism Center<\/a> at the Mayo Institute announced last January, \u201cVaccinations are not responsible for autism or the increase in autism prevalence rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy rebuffs critics who say he opposes vaccines by pointing out that all of\u00a0his six children<\/a>\u00a0were vaccinated. But Kennedy\u2019s involvement in the anti-vaccine movement started in 2005. His youngest son was born in 2001. In other words, most of his children pre-date his vaccine activism.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has faced significant pushback from members of Congress and health care professionals since becoming secretary of Health and Human Services. And the\u00a0public has noticed<\/a>. His soon-to-be-released autism report may only make his problems worse.<\/p>\n

Merrill Matthews is a co-author of \u201cOn the Edge: America Faces the Entitlements Cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

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