Children's Health Defense's Wacko Conference

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.

 At The Atlantic, Tom Bartlett reports on the annual conference of Children’s Health Defense, RFK Jr's antivax organization.

They want Kennedy to investigate their belief that the government supposedly colluded with Big Pharma to hide the harms of vaccination. In a session on Saturday afternoon, former Republican Representative Dave Weldon, whose nomination to become CDC director was withdrawn in March amid outcry over his criticism of immunizations, called for the creation of an independent body to investigate vaccine-safety data and report only to Kennedy and President Donald Trump. “If it’s in the hands of the CDC, you’ll never get the answers you need,” he told the crowd. During a session titled “The Enduring Nightmare of COVID mRNA Technology,” Sherri Tenpenny, a veteran anti-vaccine activist who once said that one goal of COVID vaccination was to turn people into “transhumanist cyborgs,” called for the mRNA-based vaccines to be taken off the market: “It’s just the next level of atrocity of how they want to damage us and make us customers for life.” Mark Gorton, the founder of LimeWire who is now president of the MAHA Institute, a think tank, favors stopping routine shots altogether until they’ve undergone further testing. “The medical establishment will scream that plagues will sweep across the land,” he said from the stage. “We need to counter that their plague of vaccine poisoning is already amongst us.”

As noted before, the antivax movment overlaps with right-wing conspiracy theory.

The forces aligned against Kennedy, everyone at the conference seemed to agree, are formidable. Leslie Manookian, the president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund and the author of a recently passed Idaho law that makes vaccine mandates illegal, railed against the “pit of vipers” that Kennedy must deal with in Washington. In a session titled “Sustaining the Promise of Freedom Through Action,” the crowd applauded when Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general, announced that the reporters from The Atlantic and The Washington Post in the room “represent forces who are working toward the enslavement of humanity”—though he allowed that he had “nothing against them.” (As The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, told the Post, “In fact, The Atlantic is not working towards the enslavement of humanity, but I appreciate his concern.”) Ladapo spent most of his speech expounding on his experience with psychotherapy and his relationship with his wife. The day after Brand declined to speak with me and called me a Nazi, Alex Jones posted a two-hour interview in which a bathrobe-clad Brand dismissed the allegations against him as a “governmental and media operation.”

Voting for Disabled Candidates

In The Politics of Autism, I write:  "Support from the general public will be an important political asset for autistic people. Another will be their sheer numbers, since a larger population of identified autistic adults will mean more autistic voters and activists."  Previous posts have discussed autistic officeholders and political candidates in California,  New York, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Voting for Disabled Candidates
Stefanie Reher  The Journal of Politics 2025 87:2, 790-794.

Despite important advances in the rights of disabled people, stigma and prejudice remain widespread. Meanwhile, disabled political representatives are few and far between. This raises the question: do voters discriminate against disabled candidates? This study uses conjoint experiments in the United States and the United Kingdom to show that candidates with physical or sensory impairments are preferred by voters on the left, whereas voters on the right are more likely to vote for nondisabled candidates. However, these effects are almost entirely due to voters’ perceptions of disabled candidates as more left-wing. When perceived ideology is held constant or candidates’ party affiliation is known, candidate disability does not affect the vote choice among right-wing voters. Left-wing voters still reward left-wing disabled candidates for representing under-represented groups. The findings expand our understanding of the role of disability in electoral politics and should encourage candidates and parties concerned about discrimination at the ballot box.

Tucker Carlson Hosts RFK Jr

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 and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.  There is a great deal of overlap between MAGA World and the antivax movement.

Nikki McCann Ramirez at Media Matters:

Fox host Tucker Carlson hosted anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a fawning interview on his Fox Nation show Tucker Carlson Today. Kennedy is a well-known figure in anti-vaccine circles and one of the most prominent backers of baseless conspiracy theories attempting to link conditions such as autism to vaccines.

During the November 15 interview, Carlson urged viewers to purchase Kennedy’s latest book, a screed accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of intentionally bungling the pandemic, killing alternatives to the vaccine, and launching an assault on the First Amendment in order to silence critics. Kennedy walked Carlson’s audience through a grab bag of his most notorious conspiracy theories, at one point asserting his belief that vaccines had to be one of the “key suspects” behind the rise in cases of autism.

 

Vaccines and Republicans

 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.

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers. 

Alan Greenblatt at Governing:

There has always been resistance to vaccines, starting with the earliest smallpox vaccines of the 18th century. In recent years, vaccine hesitancy occurred on both the left and right, with low rates of measles vaccination in liberal enclaves such as Boulder, Colo., and Marin County, Calif. One of the most prominent vaccine skeptics is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the liberal dynasty. “Prior to the pandemic, anti-vaccine activists fell roughly evenly along political party lines,” says Jonathan Berman, author of the book Anti-vaxxers.

But as anti-vaccine activism has grown during the pandemic, Berman notes, it’s become more partisan in nature. Opposing mandates and insisting on individual freedom to choose are messages that have resonated strongly among conservatives, particularly libertarians and white evangelicals.

...

At this point, with the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths occurring among the unvaccinated, it’s Republican areas that are having the worst problems. As of the middle of last month, 53 percent of people in counties that voted for President Biden were fully vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, compared to 40 percent of Trump county residents. The death rate in counties that Trump carried by 70 percent or more has been nearly five times as high as counties where he carried less than a third of the vote, according to health analyst Charles Gaba.

The preponderance of COVID-19 deaths since the spring has occurred in the solidly Republican South, with Texas and Florida alone responsible for 30 percent of the deaths since June 15. People are twice as likely to die in rural areas, now Republican strongholds, than cities.

Steve Friess at Newsweek:

Meanwhile, signs are also mounting about the partisan nature of growing opposition to vaccines and vaccine mandates, and the shift from medical to libertarian reasoning. Asked in a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation whether getting the COVID vaccine is a matter of "personal choice" or "part of everyone's responsibility to protect the health of others," more than 70 percent of Republicans saw it as a personal choice vs. just 27 percent of Democrats. And according to a Twitter analysis by Renee DiResta, research manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory, reported in The New York Times, even anti-vaxxers whose opposition in the pre-COVID era was focused on concerns about autism and toxins are now evolving their messaging to talk about freedom and "vaccine choice."

 

Video: Lindsey Graham booed and heckled by dozens of GOP activists after he says they should consider getting vaccinated. https://t.co/74odEzL87w

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) October 4, 2021

Video: Lindsey Graham booed and heckled by dozens of GOP activists after he says they should consider getting vaccinated. https://t.co/74odEzL87w

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) October 4, 2021

Right-Wing Politics, Supplements, and Autism

 In The Politics of Autism, I write:

The conventional wisdom is that any kind of treatment is likely to be less effective as the child gets older, so parents of autistic children usually believe that they are working against the clock. They will not be satisfied with the ambiguities surrounding ABA, nor will they want to wait for some future research finding that might slightly increase its effectiveness. They want results now. Because there are no scientifically-validated drugs for the core symptoms of autism, they look outside the boundaries of mainstream medicine and FDA approval. Studies have found that anywhere from 28 to 54 percent of autistic children receive “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), and these numbers probably understate CAM usage.

Specifically, they resort to nutritional supplements.of dubious value. 

People who make money from supplements also subsidize the antivax movement.

And the supplement connection may help explain the link between antivax activism and right wing politics.

Paul Krugman at NYT:

Right-wing extremists, and to some extent even more mainstream conservative media, rely on financial support from companies selling nutritional supplements and miracle cures — and that financial support is arguably a significant factor pushing the right to become more extreme. Indeed, right-wing extremism isn’t just an ideological movement that happens to get a lot of money from sellers of snake oil; some of its extremism can probably be seen not as a reflection of deep conviction, but as a way of promoting snake oil.

...

This is clearly true in the right’s fever swamps. Alex Jones of Infowars has built a following by pushing conspiracy theories, but he makes money by selling nutritional supplements.

It’s also true, however, for more mainstream, establishment parts of the right. For example, Ben Shapiro, considered an intellectual on the right, hawks supplements.

Look at who advertises on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. After Fox itself, the top advertisers are My Pillow, then three supplement companies.

Welcome Vaccine Reversals in Tennessee

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. 

Half of COVID vaccine rejectors think that vaccines in general cause autism.  Even when they take the vaccine, there could be a problem.

Brett Kelman at the Nashville Tennessean:

The Tennessee state government will resume all forms of vaccine outreach, with the narrow exception of social media posts aimed specifically at children, after halting many forms of advocacy this month in response to conservative pressure, the state's top health official said Friday.

Tennessee also faces a new “surge” of coronavirus that shows no signs of slowing, and deaths from the virus are expected to spike in coming weeks, the health official warned.

Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said the Tennessee Department of Health will restart outreach efforts recommending vaccines for children and once again hold events on school property offering the COVID-19 vaccine, including some next week. Department staff are no longer instructed to strip the agency logo from public-facing vaccine information, she said.

“Nothing has been stopped permanently,” Piercey said during a press briefing. “We put a pause on many things, and then we have resumed all of those."

Piercey said her agency will also, in rare circumstances, provide the COVID-19 vaccine to minors without the permission of their parents. This statement is a contradiction to an announcement made this week by conservative lawmakers, who said Piercey agreed in a private meeting to stop this practice.

The Tennessee Department of Health drew nationwide attention this month after exclusive reporting by The Tennessean revealed the agency had dramatically scaled back efforts to promote the coronavirus vaccine to minors. The changes came after conservative state lawmakers lambasted the agency for gently recommending the vaccine to minors and proposed dissolving the entire agency to make the outreach stop.

 Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:

 A conservative radio host in Tennessee who urged listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has changed track and called on listeners to get the shot, after contracting the virus and ending up in hospital in “very serious condition”.

In a statement posted to social media, Phil Valentine’s family detailed his condition and said: “Please continue to pray for his recovery and PLEASE GO GET VACCINATED!”

The family also said the WTN host had “never been an ‘anti-vaxer’”, but “regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon”.

Valentine, 61, did, however, play down the need for vaccines and perform a song called Vaxman, to the tune of Taxman, George Harrison’s Beatles number against government taxation.

“Let me tell you how it will be,” he sang, “and I don’t care if you agree, ‘Cause I’m the Vaxman, yeah I’m the Vaxman. If you don’t like me coming round, be thankful I don’t hold you down.”

Dr. Hotez v. the Antivaxxers

 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.

On MSNBC last night, Brian Williams spoke with Dr. Peter Hotez:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: And doctor, just take for our audience who may not be familiar with you. Take a brief moment here at the top and tell the good people watching how and why it is in your life you have become so familiar, let`s say with the anti-vaxx crowd.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, VACCINE SCIENTIST: Yes, I wish it were for good reasons, Brian, thanks for asking. You know, I`m a vaccine scientist and pediatrician and devoted my life to developing vaccines mostly for poverty related diseases to gotten Coronavirus vaccines about 10 years ago, but I`m also the parent of four adult -- four adult kids including Rachel who has autism and intellectual disability.

And a few years ago I wrote a book called "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel`s Autism" to debunk the fake assertions from the anti-vaccine lobby claiming that there`s a link that vaccines cause autism explaining the massive evidence showing there`s no link and the lack of plausibility what we know about the genetics of autism. And unfortunately, that may be public enemy number one with the anti-vaccine groups. And one prominent anti vaccine activist caused me the OG villain, which I had to look up, it means the original gangster villain. So you have the original gangster villain on tonight, Brian.

WILLIAMS: Well, we`re proud of it. And for you, this must be an incredible experience. Because I`m guessing there is a set anti-vaxx playbook, which you`ve lived long enough to see employed in the autism sphere. And now you`ve lived long enough to see it in your other life`s work, and that is suppressing active disease like this.

HOTEZ: Yes, that`s right. So what happened with the anti-vaccine movement is, you know, I like to think maybe in part because I was helped to fuse a little bit the links and between vaccines and autism, and I think to reenergize about six, seven years ago, they -- to reenergize they politicize. They linked themselves on to political extremism on the far right. Initially, the Republican Tea Party organizations, political action committee started forming in Texas and Oklahoma, where I am and now you see it play out nightly, I`m the conservative news outlets.

And you if you listen to the CPAC conference a couple of weeks ago, the horror show that that unfolded there from very conservative members of Congress, discrediting vaccines and claiming it`s nothing more than a political instrument of control. And this is why we`re in this terrible, terrible situation right now, where we have whole regions of the country, not just outbreak areas, but entire regions of the South Central U.S., in the southeastern United States, where people are not getting vaccinated out of defiance.

And we`re seeing this massive surge, all predicted and predictable when you have that combination of delta and low vaccination rates. So it`s totally heartbreaking because all of this could have been prevented.

Antivax Monday

 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.

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers. 

Tiffany Hsu at NYT:

Opposition to vaccines was once relegated to the fringes of American politics, and the rhetoric on Fox News has coincided with efforts by right-wing extremists to bash vaccination efforts.

Served up to an audience that is more likely than the general population to be wary of Covid vaccines, the remarks by Mr. Carlson and Ms. Ingraham echoed a now-common conservative talking point — that the government-led effort to raise vaccination rates amounted to a violation of civil liberties and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The comments by the Fox News hosts and their guests may have also helped cement vaccine skepticism in the conservative mainstream, even as the Biden administration’s campaign to inoculate the public is running into resistance in many parts of the country.

 Caitlin Owens at Axios:

State Republican lawmakers around the country are pushing bills — at least one of which has become law — that would give unvaccinated people the same protections as those surrounding race, gender and religion.

Why it matters: These bills would tie the hands of private businesses that want to protect their employees and customers. But they also show how deep into the political psyche resistance to coronavirus vaccine requirements has become, and how vaccination status has rapidly become a marker of identity.
...
Zoom in: Montana has made it illegal to "discriminate" on the basis of vaccine status, with some exceptions within the health care sector.

• The law prohibits businesses, governmental entities and places of "public accommodation" — like grocery stores, hotels or restaurants — from refusing to serve or withholding goods from anyone based on their vaccination status or whether they have an "immunity passport."
• Employers aren't allowed to discriminate against or refuse to employ someone based on the same criteria.
• “This is a civil rights statute. It absolutely is," Bagley said. "What this law is saying is that a restriction directed at the unvaccinated is prohibited in the same way as you'd be prohibited from putting up a sign saying, 'no Irish admitted.'"

Noting that the government is falling short of its Covid vaccine goals is an applause line at CPAC Dallas pic.twitter.com/og9Fw1MRAv

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2021

Boebert: We’re here to tell government we don’t want your benefits. We don’t want your welfare… pic.twitter.com/Gk8WenGrls

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 10, 2021

People Will Die Because of GOP Antivaxxers

 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.

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.

Aaron Blake at WP:

It has been three days since President Biden announced an initiative to send people door-to-door trying to get more people vaccinated, and Republicans and their conservative media allies have wasted no time turning those door-knockers into terrifying straw men.

To be clear, there are valid questions about whether this is a good idea or the best use of government resources. But the pushback from some portions of the right has been swift and often over the top — to the point where it could very logically lead to some ugly scenes.

Republican members of Congress and conservative talkers have wrongly pitched the effort as forced vaccination — even repeatedly invoking the Nazis — and lodged baseless suggestions that it would be done using illegally obtained medical information. Others have suggested it’s something akin to government coercion or even a precursor to gun confiscation.

We know relatively little about the nascent effort thus far, but what we do know bears little to no resemblance to these allegations.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) got the ball rolling Tuesday by comparing the effort to “medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations.” Not to be outdone, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) took to Twitter the next day to offer her own Nazi comparison, labeling the door-knockers “needle Nazis.”

Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark:

All of this is having an effect. As NPR reports, “There's A Stark Red-Blue Divide When It Comes To States' Vaccination Rates.”

Some of the least vaccinated states are the most pro-Trump. Trump won 17 of the 18 states with the lowest adult vaccination rates. Many of these states have high proportions of whites without college degrees.

The irony is that many of those who now deride the vaccines also objected to lockdowns, social distancing, and the wearing of masks. In a rational world, they would see the vaccines as a ticket back to normal life.

Instead, at this moment, they have chosen to go full anti-vax. Even with hundreds of thousands of dead, and hospitals again filling up, the lies continue; media types tell them to get clicks and likes; pols spread the lies to raise their profile and bring in cash.

And their recklessness will kill people. This is not hyperbole.

The toll of the lies —the tweets, cable hits, and performative demagoguery — can be measured in human lives. The right’s burst of dishonesty means that more fathers, mothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, even children will die.

California Voters Back New Vax Law

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing disease to spread. 

From UC Berkeley:

Just 16% of voters are opposed to a new California law requiring parents vaccinate their children, according to a new poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

The poll, conducted online from Sept. 13 to 18, found support for the bill from the vast majority of Californians: rich or poor, conservative or liberal, educated or not. Roughly 83% of all voters said they favored the law, 61% said they favored it strongly.

“Support is broad-based with large majorities across all major subgroups of the state’s registered voter population in favor,” said Mark DiCamillo, head of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “Liberals display the highest levels of support, with greater than nine in 10 in favor.”
...

The poll surveyed 4,527 registered voters in both English and Spanish. The poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

From the complete analysis of the new Berkeley IGS Poll

Support for the new law spans all major demographic and regional subgroups of the state’s registered voter population. There are, however,some variations in the size of the majorities favoring the law relating to voters’self-described political ideology. Support is strongest among liberals, nine in ten of whom favorit. Support declines to 67% among voters who describe themselves as very conservative in politics, with one in three (32%) opposed

Liberals, Conservatives, Vaccines

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

Charles McCoy writes at The Conversation:

As to whether liberals or conservatives are now more likely to be opposed to vaccination, some researchers have suggested that, while anti-vaccination beliefs have spread to libertarians on the right, the anti-vaccination movement originates and finds its strongest support in the political left. A later article by the same researchers similarly argues that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) evidence shows that states that voted for Obama in 2012 have higher rates of nonmedical vaccination exemptions.

Yet, other research suggests that it is in fact conservatives who are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism, that it is liberals who are more likely to endorse pro-vaccination statements and that the more strongly someone identifies with the Republican Party, the more likely he or she is to have a negative opinion of vaccination.

The Pew Research Center has conducted two surveys that asked about vaccination. One survey in early 2015 asked respondents about whether they thought vaccines were safe, and another survey in late 2014 asked respondents about U.S. vaccination policy and whether vaccination for children should be required or a parent’s choice.

When relating the answers to these questions in the Pew surveys to people’s political views, I find an interesting divergence. The more conservative and also the more liberal someone is, the more likely he or she is to believe that vaccination is unsafe.

Yet only those who are very conservative are more likely to believe that vaccination should be a parent’s choice. This suggests the social dynamics that shape Americans’ personal beliefs about vaccine safety are not the same as the social dynamics that shape their views about whether parents can decide not to vaccinate their children.

Conservative Case for Medicaid

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as other government programs at the federal and state levels.

Since the 1960s, when California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman Act, conservative Republicans have often supported legislation to help people with disabilities. (Rick Santorum, for instance, was prime Senate sponsor of the Combating Autism Act of 2006.)  One persuasive argument for conservative support is that it is more efficient and effective to help people with disabilities achieve independence than to pay for their institutionalization. Pay now, or pay later.

A couple of recent articles explain why conservatives should oppose the Medicaid cuts in BCRA.

Matthew Herr at The Hill:

HCBS keep people with mental illness, Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities (I/DD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI) — including members of our state’s sizable veteran population — in their communities and out of institutions. The data has shown over, and over, and over again that HCBS are one of the most fiscally effective parts of Medicaid. They are two to 30 times less expensive than comparable institutional placement. And they produce better results.

By keeping people in their communities, HCBS also promote independence and self-reliance. People who stay in their communities contribute to their communities. They live fuller, freer, more productive lives. They are more likely to get and maintain employment, and pay taxes as a result. Without access to HCBS, more Americans will face a life of purgatory in costly state-managed institutions — where the government can decide where you will live, when you eat, and what you do in your spare time.

With soaring healthcare costs, we absolutely need to rein in spending where it is wasteful. But why are we trying to pass healthcare legislation that would gut the most fiscally effective parts of Medicaid?

Jason Sattler at USA Today:

The 50 unique state programs cover 60% of all children with disabilities, affirming the “pro-life” decisions of parents to have children regardless of the potential complications. The expenses incurred by parents of kids with severe special needs are so immense that even affluent families could be bankrupted without the supplemental support of Medicaid.

The Senate GOP argues its proposed Medicaid cuts of up to 39%, which survived the bill’s second draft intact, won’t hit families caring for children with disabilities.
But don’t believe the spin.

Yes, there is a “carve out” to protect “blind and disabled” children, but that will only protect a “fraction of kids” with severe special needs, according to Janis Guerney, co-public policy director at Family Voices. Additionally, kids with “complex conditions — such as cystic fibrosis, autism and Down syndrome — would be vulnerable to whatever cuts their states make,” according to Kaiser Health News’ Jordan Rau.

States, which have to balance their budgets by law, will be forced into constant “Sophie’s Choices” requiring them to decide who is most deserving of care — the elderly, poor kids or people with disabilities.