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 top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.
He claims to be searching for the causes of autism but the administration is slashing autism research.
Eric Garcia at The Independent:
"To see decades of high quality, excellent research, just being ignored is as concerning to say the least," said Molly Losh, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Communication. "And and the people who are the the individuals with the strongest voices are, seem to be the those who are the least informed of the science."
Massive cuts, largely initiated by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, saw the elimination of federal grants, including research focused on autism. Kennedy has sought to characterize the increase in cases of autism as signs of an epidemic, even though the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, which also falls under his jurisdiction, has found that much of the increase in diagnoses stems from improved detection.
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In May, the National Institutes of Health, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services jurisdiction, announced that it would not issue awards to domestic or foreign entities “that include a subaward to a foreign entity.” For Losh, it was a death blow for a project that would have studied “social language abilities” as well as neural and behavioral markers in autism across English and Cantonese speakers.
