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.
Questioning a move by Florida to end its childhood vaccine mandates, the president said vaccines work, “pure and simple.” But he also posted a video on social media promoting the idea that vaccines are linked to autism — a theory he has espoused for nearly two decades despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
The video focused on a mercury-based preservative that has been removed from nearly all childhood vaccines. It featured David Geier, who has been hired by Mr. Kennedy to work on a study on the causes of autism that is expected later this month.
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Like Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Trump appears to have been influenced by a 1998 study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, asserting that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was linked to autism. The study was eventually retracted, though not until 2010, and its lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license.
In 2007, Mr. Trump held a fund-raiser for Autism Speaks, a parent advocacy group, at Mar-a-Lago. He theorized that babies were getting too many shots at once, and said that he and his wife, Melania, had slowed down the vaccine schedule for their son Barron, then almost 2.
“What we’ve done with Barron, we’ve taken him on a very slow process,” Mr. Trump said then. “He gets one shot at a time, then we wait a few months and give him another shot, the old-fashioned way.”
