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.
President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video to his social media account promoting the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism.
The decades-old video, in part, features David Geier, who Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped this spring to investigate links between vaccines and autism, alongside his father, Dr. Mark Geier, whose medical license was suspended following claims he endangered children with autism. The anti-vaccine activists have published numerous studies on the topic and discuss some of their ideas in the video, which circulated around the internet Monday after Trump shared it.
Trump has been pushing the vaccine theory for nearly twenty years. In 2007, Josh Hafenbrack reported at The South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
At a news conference Thursday in a gold-trimmed Mar-A-Lago ballroom, Trump's wife, Melania, noted her 22-month-old son, Baron, and said: "I cannot imagine what the mothers [with autistic children] and mothers all around the world go through. ... Let's get rid of autism."
In an interview, Donald Trump said he thinks the rising prevalence of autism is related to vaccinations of babies and toddlers.
One in 150 children is now diagnosed with autism, with the prevalence higher among boys.
"When I was growing up, autism wasn't really a factor," he said. "And now all of a sudden, it's an epidemic. Everybody has their theory, and my theory is the shots. They're getting these massive injections at one time. I think it's the vaccinations."
