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.
Olivia Bowden at The Guardian:
Canadian officials and public health experts are warning that US health and science institutions can no longer be depended upon for accurate information, particularly when it comes to vaccinations, amid fears that misinformation from the Trump administration could further erode Canadians’ confidence in healthcare.
“I can’t imagine a world in which this misinformation doesn’t creep into Canadians’ consciousness and leads to doubt,” said Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist and professor at McMaster University in Ontario.
Those fears have emerged as the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has forwarded an anti-vaccine agenda. In December, a panel appointed by Kennedy voted to remove a longstanding recommendation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that all newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
The CDC also updated its website in November at the instruction of Kennedy to claim that “studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism”, which top public health experts have decried as false.
The agency’s move toward misinformation and away from public health leadership makes it more difficult to combat distrust in vaccinations in Canada, says Bowdish.
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A December poll on vaccination hesitancy by research firm Leger Healthcare found that while most Canadians (74%) have confidence in vaccines, hesitancy has increased primarily due to fears around safety driven by social media and government mistrust.
The survey also found that 17% of those who expressed a lack of confidence in vaccines say they get their information from US government websites.
