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Friday, August 2, 2019

Autism and 2020 Candidates

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.

Andrew Yang at the Tuesday debate:
What we have to do is we have to say look, there's record high GDP in stock market prices, you know what else they're at record high is? Suicides, drug overdoses, depression, anxiety. It's gotten so bad that American life expectancy had declined for the last three years.
And I like to talk about my wife who is at home with our two boys right now, one of whom is autistic. What is her work count at in today's economy. Zero and we know that's the opposite of the truth. We know that her work is amongst the most challenging and vital.
The way we win this election as we redefine economic progress to include all the things that matter to the people in Michigan and all of us like our own heath, our well being, our mental health, our clean air and clean water, how are kids are doing.
If we change the measurements for the 21st century economy to revolve around our own well being then we will win this election.

Rosie Perper at Business Insider:
2020 candidate Marianne Williamson responded to questions on vaccinations during an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, touting unsupported claims that there were far fewer cases of chronic illness when fewer vaccines were taken during her childhood.
In an interview with MSNBC host Ari Melber, a day after her appearance in the first CNN Democratic debate in Detroit, Williamson addressed past controversial comments made on mandatory vaccinations. She has previously described mandatory vaccination as "draconian" and "Orwellian."
Speaking to Melber on Wednesday, Williamson claimed that when she was a child vaccines were less widespread and chronic illness was less common.