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.

Stein Takes Flak on Autism and Vaccines

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.    Previous posts excerpted the Republican platform and the Democratic platform.  Posts have also discussed Green Party candidate Jill Stein's equivocation on vaccines.

Stein appeared yesterday in Newark, Delaware. Matt Bittle reports at Delaware State News:

During the question-and-answer portion, one man pressed her about vaccines, leading to an outcry from other members of the audience. Earlier this year, Dr. Stein told the Washington Post she had “real questions” about vaccines, raising questions from some who thought she was lending credence to a largely discredited theory that posits vaccines cause autism.

She said Friday she believes a comprehensive study needs to be done to determine who developmental disabilities are increasing but “there is no evidence linking autism and vaccines.”

As the man continued to push Dr. Stein to go farther in repudiating the autism claim, interrupting her at one point, other listeners began calling for the next question, and the candidate turned her attention to another member of the audience.

The Candidates on Vaccines and Autism

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.    Previous posts excerpted the Republican platform and the Democratic platform.  Posts have also discussed Green Party candidate Jill Stein's equivocation on vaccines.

Anna Almendrala writes at The Huffington Post:

In a video interview with The Washington Post last Friday, [Stein] said that while vaccines have played an important role in keeping us healthy and safe, there are legitimate concerns about how those vaccines are approved and regulated.

...
The comments mirror statements she made during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum in May, when she described corporate influence over U.S. vaccine regulation as “foxes... guarding the chicken coop,” claiming regulatory boards are “routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs.” (Stein also seemed to suggest that in an “unheard of” situation, the U.S. doesn’t allow medical exemptions to its vaccination program; in fact, all states offer medical exemptions.)

While Stein is not strictly “anti-vaccine,” she is promoting a narrative that the vaccine regulation process in the U.S. is corrupt and untrustworthy ― a common refrain from actual anti-vaxxers. In fact, the U.S. vaccine regulatory process is a global model for how any drug should be tested and approved before hitting the market, several vaccine experts told The Huffington Post.

Robinson Meyer writes at The Atlantic:

But Stein is not the only candidate to address vaccines this election cycle. As first pointed out by the Twitter user @mcclure11, three of the four media-receiving presidential candidates have appeared to pander to anti-vaccine advocates. Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has tweeted “No to mandatory vaccines.” And Donald Trump linked vaccines to autism in a GOP primary debate last fall, before being corrected on-stage by the surgeon Ben Carson.

Hillary Clinton tweeted in support of vaccines in February of this year. “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids,” she said.

This round of equivocation from candidates may seem ominous—but, if anything, questions from party leaders over the safety of vaccinations have lately decreased. Comments like these were more common eight years ago. In 2008, Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain seemed to question the safety of vaccines. “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate,” said Obama said at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. “Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines.”

The Sacramento Bee editorializes:

It's] time to stop pandering to this element just to get a couple of votes on the margin. This election has been clouded enough with dog-whistle science denial. The Republican primary featured Donald Trump peddling discredited claims linking vaccines and autism, and Rand Paul and Ben Carson, who are physicians, repeating fringe assertions that delaying immunization was safer than the CDC’s standard schedule. It isn’t.

\Stein may be a third-party candidate, but she has a high profile now, and she’s a doctor. It’s disingenuous for her to play fast and loose with public health.

She knows the right answer to the immunization question. Hillary Clinton shouldn’t look like a rogue genius just for saying the obvious, as she did last year, when she tweeted: “The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article93320387.html#storylink=cpy