Left, Right, and the Antivax Movement

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong.  

Unfortunately, Republican politicians are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.  Recent examples include a member of the House COVID subcommittee and a crackpot who is seeking the party's US Senate nomination in Ohio.  California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder gave a radio platform to Andrew Wakefield.

Orac (David Gorski) notes that there was once a stereotype that antivaxxers were mostly on the left.

In actuality, this perception of a strong leftward political bias in the antivaccine movement was never really accurate. It’s long been known that antivaccine views tended to be the pseudoscience that crossed political boundaries. Indeed, there has always been a libertarian and right wing component to the antivaccine movement, with a very strong strain of antivaccine views on the right as well. Examples included General Bert Stubblebine III’s Natural Solutions Foundation, far right libertarians, and others who distrust the government, including government-recommended vaccine schedules, an observation that led me once to ask in 2013 why the antivaccine movement seemed so at home among libertarians. Indeed, at the right-wing Libertarian FreedomFest in 2012, I was privileged to watch a debate between Julian Whitaker and Steve Novella about vaccines. At the debate, vaccine pseudoscience flowed freely from Whitaker in a most embarrassing fashion, and I couldn’t help but note that FreedomFest that year featured two screenings of Leslie Manookian’s antivaccine propaganda piece, The Greater Good and had featured antivaccine talks in previous years. Ironically, at one point, one of the antivaccine bloggers at the crank blog Age of Autism blamed “progressivism” for failing to “get” autism. (Translation: From his perspective, his fellow progressives don’t accept the vaccine-autism link the way he would like, while conservatives apparently did.)

It is no coincidence that the most powerful antivaccine legislator in the 1990s and into the first decade of the 2000s was Representative Dan Burton (R-Indiana), who for many years was the foremost promoter of the pseudoscience claiming that vaccines cause autism. His activities in support of antivaccine views as chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were legion while he was in Congress and Republicans controlled the House. For instance, Burton held showboating, Kangaroo court-style hearings about thimerosal and autism back in 2002 that now remind me, more than anything else, of the hearings about Stanislaw Burzynski by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) back in the 1990s. Burton also was known for harassing FDA officials over thimerosal in vaccines, and at one point tried to insert himself into the Autism Omnibus hearings by writing a letter to the Special Masters asking them to consider crappy scientific papers (e.g., a this paper, which was pure crap) allegedly supporting a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.

Autism, Vaccines, Measles, and Distrust of Government

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.

At The Atlantic, Peter Beinart writes that distrust of vaccines has grown in tandem with distrust of government.

.In 2002, Representative Dan Burton, who in the 1990s had repeatedly implied that the Clintons were involved in the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, invited the disgraced doctor to testify before his committee. Burton—whose grandson has autism—went on to hold at least 20 hearings, suggesting that government scientists were covering up a link between vaccines and autism.

Burton was a harbinger. After a Republican presidential debate in 2011, one of the candidates, Michele Bachmann, claimed that the HPV vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer, causes mental retardation. While running for president in 2015, Senator Rand Paul—a physician—argued against mandatory vaccinations by asserting that there are “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” And from 2012 to 2014, while Donald Trump was claiming that President Barack Obama hadn’t been born in the United States, he also tweeted more than 30 times about the supposed dangers of vaccines.

Yet it’s not only conservatives who translate their suspicion of government into suspicion of vaccines. Many liberals distrust the large drug companies that both produce vaccines and help fund the Food and Drug Administration, which is supposed to regulate them. The former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has suggested that “widespread distrust” of what she describes as the medical-industrial complex is understandable because “regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs.” The environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims that thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in some vaccines, harms children. Bright-blue counties in Northern California, Washington State, and Oregon have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.

Although polls suggest that conservatives are slightly less accepting of vaccines than liberals are, a 2014 study found that distrust of government was correlated with distrust of vaccines among both Republicans and Democrats. Indeed, the best predictor of someone’s view of vaccines is not their political ideology, but their trust in government and their openness to conspiracy theories.

Dan Burton, Lobbyist

Legistorm reports:

Former Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) is now officially a lobbyist, having filed to lobby on behalf of a group founded by the Church of Scientology.

Burton, through his firm Dan Burton International LLC, registered as a lobbyist for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an organization established by the Church of Scientology in 1969 that advocates against psychiatry and psychiatric medicine. Burton's filing indicates he is representing CCHR's position on issues related to "psychiatric treatments including drugs and brain devices" in the 21st Century Cures Act, which has passed the House and as of yet has no counterpart in the Senate.

This lobbying role is not Burton's first encounter with Scientology. While not a member of the Church, Burton attended the opening of the Church's national office in 2012 and commended the CCHR for its work and the opening of their National Public Affairs Office in Washington, D.C. a few months prior.

Burton and Church officials are also allied in their skepticism of the Food and Drug Administration. Scientology has been in an ongoing battle with the agency for decades. Meanwhile, Burton has criticized the agency on a number of fronts, such as his belief that an FDA-approved vaccine caused autism in his grandson. The FDA and other government agencies reject the theory.

A former committee staffer of Burton's, Beth Clay, who has fought with the FDA on alternative medicines and other matters, has served as a board member on the CCHR.
Burton began service in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. He was perhaps best known for his investigations into President Clinton's fundraising practices and the death of White House counsel Vince Foster. He retired in 2013 citing family health issues.

From a March 11, 2007 post at Left Brain/Right Brain:

We now have several DAN! doctors who are scientologists, several thiomersal/autism lawyers who are scientologists, a ‘cured’ child who was diagnosed (partly), treated and ‘cured’ by scientologists and now one Congressman who’s [sic] advisor is a scientologist. We also have one indirect link from scientology to Generation Rescue (in the shape of Julia Berle, founding parent of that organisation and mother to the ‘cured’ child described above) and one direct link from scientology to SafeMinds in the shape of Beth Clay.

Remembering the Burton Hearings

At Politico, former Henry Waxman staffer Sarah Despres recalls Dan Burton's vaccine hearings (h/t Brian and Phil):

It was difficult to watch the nation’s immunization program, a crown jewel of public health, responsible for saving so many lives, being attacked at high-profile congressional hearings — all on the basis of unscientific theories. And it was frustrating to see members of Congress giving equal weight to both sides of the argument when one was so clearly flawed. We staffers often talked among ourselves about the lives the committee was putting at risk.

Few legislators were prepared to stand up for science. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), then ranking member on the Government Oversight and Reform Committee and a longtime advocate for children’s health and safe and effective immunizations, was one of a handful of members prepared to state that the evidence did not support a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. As for the others, the antivaccine evidence presented might have been shaky, but the science is complicated. And most members of Congress — on the committee and off — did not feel comfortable opposing the advocates and parents armed with heartbreaking stories of children whose autism seemed to come on just after they received their routine immunizations. A number of members made supportive comments about the committee’s work, and the hearings continued for a number of years.

We can see from the numbers the CDC reported this month that those hearings 14 years ago made a difference. They gave an unscientific theory the veneer of government-sanctioned legitimacy — enough for the Internet and a handful of celebrities to cherry-pick evidence presented to Congress and spread it. A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2008 found that there were spikes in media coverage of the theory linking vaccines to autism after the two most high-profile hearings in 2000 and 2002. The same study also showed that parents were increasingly getting their information about vaccines from the Internet, where the work of the committee was widely covered.

Unfortunately, Despres does not accurately convey the findings of the Pediatrics article. (Michael Smith, et al., "Media Coverage of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine and Autism Controversy and Its Relationship to MMR Immunization Rates in the United States," Pediatrics 121 (April 2008): e836-e848.)

There was minimal media coverage of the MMR-autism story apart from 3 periods. A large media spike in April 2001 that was responsible for the majority of stories during the study period was associated with the Institute of Medicine report that rejected a causal association between MMR and autism. Smaller spikes in 2000 and 2002 reported the 2 US House Committee Reform hearings on the MMR-autism debate. Even during periods of increased media coverage, attention to the MMR-autism story was short lived. For instance, 141 of the 171 stories in April 2001 occurred within 24 hours after the release of the Institute of Medicine report on April 23.
...

A review of the NIS data between 1995 and 2004 demonstrates a significant increase in both overall and selective MMR nonreceipt within the 2000 NIS cohort of which the MMR vaccinations would likely have occurred in close proximity to the publication of the article in 1998 by Wakefield et al. This increase in selective nonreceipt at a population level was not trivial; 1 in 50 children missed the opportunity for MMR immunization, and the rates were as high as 1 in 40 among children in private practices (data not shown). Significant media coverage of the MMR-autism controversy did not begin until nearly 2 years after this measurable increase in nonreceipt. To our surprise, selective MMR nonreceipt had already returned to baseline by the time this increased media coverage occurred. In the absence of widely reported newsprint, television, or radio reports, the likely explanation for the brief increase in MMR nonreceipt is that parents learned about the MMR-autism controversy from other sources.

Dan Burton and the House Oversight Hearing

Roll Call  reports on tomorrow's House Oversight hearing.

With about a month left before he retires, [Dan] Burton will have one last chance to pursue the issue from his seat on the Oversight panel Thursday, when the panel holds a hearing on autism spectrum disorders. Burton said he plans to focus his questions on environmental factors — such as mercury or other contaminants in water — that have the potential to affect children’s neurological systems, as well as the vaccine issue.

“I’m very confident that the mercury in vaccinations is a contributing factor,” said Burton, whose teenage grandson has autism. “It may not be the only one — that’s why I talked about environmental issues as well — but certainly anything that you inject into your body that has mercury in it is a contaminant.”

But while Burton requested the hearing and expects to preside over part of it, the testimony lined up by the Oversight panel is expected to take a wider look at the autism spectrum rather than zeroing in on the controversy over vaccines. In an invitation to the National Institutes of Health, Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the hearing would look at “the federal response to the recent rise in ASD diagnoses,” the distribution of government resources, and research and treatment options.

“Rising ASD diagnosis rates present a challenge to federal agencies charged with coordinating response efforts,” Oversight spokesman Ali Ahmad said. “The committee will hear testimony from a broad array of voices, including parent advocates, self advocates, educational specialists and scientists.”

More on the House Oversight Hearing

At Forbes, Emily Willingham expresses concern about next week's House hearing:

As the parent of an autistic child and as a scientist, I’m concerned that a meeting with an agenda not grounded in science will harm not only autistic people who have no voice in the proceedings but also general public health by again raising the specter of “vaccines cause autism” in the public consciousness. Given the stark evidence of how vaccines save lives, any hearing with a Congressional imprimatur should especially involve careful, science-based consideration of public health issues.

I also believe that support in the form of appropriate educational, employment, and therapeutic access for autistic people is important. The federal government devotes considerable resources to autism in the United States, including authorizing $1 billion for autism biomedical and treatment research in 2011. We also already have a federal committee to synthesize and publicize autism-related information and engage in strategic planning for addressing autism-related supports. Would more support be a boon to autistic people and their families, especially if it targeted existing needs? Yes. But I do not understand how a Congressional committee meeting not focused on those needs would suddenly generate any useful insights or practical effects in a hastily organized proceeding with invitees who don’t represent the entire spectrum of the autism community. Soon-to-retire Rep. Dan Burton, the man responsible for the ‘circus-like‘ vaccines-autism committee proceeding in 2000 that featured one Andrew J. Wakefield, remains on this Congressional committee. Given that in 2007, when the purported vaccines-autism link was already disintegrating, Burton argued that families of autistic children should be compensated for “vaccine injury” through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, I don’t have terribly high hopes that science will be in attendance at this latest meeting, either.

Talking Points for the Hearing

Left Brain/Right Brain suggests some talking points for the congressional hearing next week:

1) We need focus on improving the quality of life of Autistics
2) While not all Autistics can self-advocate, if we are going to have autism organizations represented, we need to have Autistic-run organizations represented.
3) Autism is a very broad spectrum, all with challenges of some sort. The government’s response needs to be broad (read-larger than it is now) in order to encompass all the needs of these communities.
4) The vaccine-epidemic hypothesis has been very damaging to the autism communities. Please don’t allow this meeting to be a way around the science in order to keep that idea alive.
5) There are faux therapies in common use for autism. Many are harmless. Some are dangerous and based on incredibly poor science. We need to get accurate information out about these practices.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism observes:

We at TPGA are concerned that no autistic-run organizations have been invited to the meeting as of this writing. We are also concerned about the track record of such congressional hearings: they have been used in the past to promote harmful misinformation about autism, and one of the past and current committee members is Rep. Dan Burton, who still firmly believes his grandchild's autism was caused by vaccines.

Gingrich on the Vaccine Theory

Newt Gingrich has weighed in on vaccines and autism.


From To Save America (rev. ed., 2011, pp. 142-143):

But perhaps no anti-scientific argument is more dangerous today than the claim put forward by radical environmentalists, most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that childhood vaccinations can cause autism. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have disproved this connection. Moreover, the Lancet, a prominent British journal that published a 1998 study confirming a vaccination-autism connection, recently retracted the study, whose findings had already been repudiated by ten of its thirteen co-authors.

Yet some parents, worried by these rumors, have stopped vaccinating their children, endangering public health.

Note, however, that some on the right have also embraced the vaccine theory. Most notable is Gingrich's former colleague, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN).

Dan Burton Survives His Primary

Dan Burton (R-IN), Capitol Hill's leading advocate of the vaccine theory, narrowly won renomination yesterday. The Indianapolis Star reports:

For the first time since he was elected in 1982, the majority of voters Tuesday did not back U.S. Rep. Dan Burton in the 5th Congressional District's Republican primary.

In fact, 70 percent voted against him. And it didn't matter.

Burton still won, collecting 30 percent of the vote -- enough to edge out six contenders and all but ensure him a 15th term in Congress, representing a district that has never sent a Democrat to Capitol Hill.

In November, Burton will face Democrat Tim Crawford, who defeated Nasser Hanna.

Former state Rep. Luke Messer came the closest yet to knocking off Burton, collecting 28 percent of the vote.

He and the other five challengers who ran against Burton tried to tap into a national mood swing against Washington incumbents and growing concerns about the policies of President Barack Obama, and it almost worked.

Politico earlier reported: "Health and pharmaceutical executives are throwing thousands of dollars to the Republicans challenging Indiana Rep. Dan Burton in next week's House primary, deepening the longtime industry critic's woes as he battles to capture his party's nomination." But a search of FEC records reveals that such contributions accounted for only a small fraction of Messer's total.

Drug Companies v. Dan Burton

Politico reports:

Health and pharmaceutical executives are throwing thousands of dollars to the Republicans challenging Indiana Rep. Dan Burton in next week's House primary, deepening the longtime industry critic's woes as he battles to capture his party's nomination.

Burton, a 14-term incumbent, has antagonized health care and drug companies by advocating for alternative medicine and insisting that there is a connection between vaccines and childhood autism. And as Burton fights challenges from two credible Republicans, state Rep. Mike Murphy and former Indiana Republican Party executive director Luke Messer, executives are coming to his opponents' aid.

Executives at the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, a major employer based in Burton's district and stung by his vaccine allegations, have anted up more than $3,000 for the congressman's opponents this cycle, including a late $500 contribution to Messer from the company's chairman emeritus, Sidney Taurel.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36421.html#ixzz0mLCl7WPQ

Burton also supported reimportation of drugs from Canada and opposed the final version of the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Burton in Trouble

Dan Burton (R-IN) is in political trouble. The Columbus (IN) Republic reports:

Dan Burton has made his reputation over nearly three decades in Congress as a fierce partisan who led Republican investigations of the Clinton administration and has taken on lonely causes such as the disputed link between mercury in vaccines and autism.

But he's getting little respect from a crowd of primary challengers who say he's a Washington gadfly and mock him as a useless appendix.

To them, and some voters, Burton's time has come — and gone.

"He's a fine man, but he's been there too long," said Jim Peacock, 68, of Carmel who is a partner in a casket making company. "We need fresh bodies, fresh thinking and not tenured politicians."

Burton, 71, faces six challengers in Indiana's May 4 primary, an unprecedented test for the congressman who's been in Washington since 1982.

Republicans looking ahead to November expect to keep the seat, long considered one of the nation's safest for the GOP. But whether Burton is in it for a 15th term could depend on voter fatigue with longtime politicians and whether the crowded primary field dilutes the anti-Burton vote in the district that covers suburban Indianapolis and stretches north to several rural counties around Kokomo and Marion.

Burton's blogroll includes links to Adventures in Autism and The Age of Autism