Bannon Advocates Physical Abuse

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

The appointment of Steve Bannon as senior White House counselor does not bode well for the disability community.

Last month, Jonathan Swan reported at The Hill:

In December 2015, weeks after Ryan became Speaker, Bannon wrote in an internal Breitbart email obtained by The Hill that the “long game” for his news site was for Ryan to be “gone” by the spring.

In the Dec. 1 email, Breitbart’s Washington editor, Matt Boyle, suggested to Bannon via email that a story promoting Ryan’s planned overhaul of the mental health system would be a good way to “open a bridge” to Ryan.

Bannon wasn’t keen on the idea.

“I’ve got a cure for mental health issue,” Bannon wrote to Boyle. “Spank your children more.”

Bannon's Breitbart News Service often quotes Michael Savage.  In 2008,  The New York Times reported:

Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every child with autism as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview on Monday that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.

From another Breitbart writer:

Time for some honesty. Women are — and you won’t hear this anywhere else — screwing up the internet for men by invading every space we have online and ruining it with attention-seeking and a needy, demanding, touchy-feely form of modern feminism that quickly comes into conflict with men’s natural tendency to be boisterous, confrontational and delightfully autistic. 

Ari Ne'eman writes:

I wish I could say I was surprised.

This is the same Steve Bannon known for spreading racist, misogynist and anti-semitic faux-news across the internet. The same Steve Bannon who faced domestic violence charges after law enforcement found red marks on the neck of his wife while responding to a “domestic disturbance.” The same Steve Bannon whose ex-wife reported that he didn’t want his daughters “going to school with Jews.”

Of course we should know by now that people with disabilities won’t be exempt from this hate. When racism, anti-semitism and misogyny rear their ugly heads, ableism is never far behind. And so we have to be ready.

Race and Special Education

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the experiences of different ethnic and racial groups.

At Exceptional Children, Paul L. Morgan and colleagues have an article titled  "Are Black Children Disproportionately Overrepresented in Special Education? A Best-Evidence Synthesis."

The abstract:

We synthesized empirical work to evaluate whether Black children are disproportionately overrepresented in special education. We identified 22 studies that met a priori inclusion criteria including use of at least 1 covariate in the reported analyses. Evidence of overrepresentation declined markedly as the studies included one or more of 3 “best-evidence” methodological features (i.e., analyses of individual-level data, a nationally representative sample, a control for individual-level academic achievement). Among 48 coefficient estimates from studies with the strongest internal and external validity, only 1 (2.1%) indicated significant overrepresentation. This coefficient suggested a school characteristic (a high percentage of minority students) that may help explain underrepresentation. None of the remaining 47 (97.9%) regression coefficients indicated that Black children’s overrepresentation in special education was explained by misidentification based on race or ethnicity. Instead, the best evidence indicates that Black children are significantly less likely than otherwise similar White children to receive special education services.

From the article:

Collectively, our synthesis provides little support for the view that Black children are overrepresented in special education based on race or ethnicity. The best available studies instead indicate that among children displaying similar needs, White children are more likely to be identified and provided with special education services
...
Policies emphasizing reducing minority overrepresentation risk exacerbating inequities by further limiting children’s access to special education as well as to IDEA’s extensive legal protections. The view that Black children’s overrepresentation in special education
is the result of widespread misidentification based on race or ethnicity currently lacks  mpirical support from well-designed studies. Yet calls are currently being made to strengthen compliance monitoring as well as implement additional federal policies designed to reduce minority overrepresentation. These well-intentioned policy efforts are not currently based on well-designed empirical studies and would instead be better directed by ensuring that all children with disabilities, regardless of race or ethnicity, are properly evaluated and provided access to the high-quality special education services to which they have a civil right.

Antivax Trump

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. 

The Age of Autism quotes Jennifer Larson:

Now that Trump won, we can all feel safe in sharing that Mr Trump met with autism advocates in August. He gave us 45 minutes and was extremely educated on our issues. Mark [Blaxill] stated " You can't make America great with all these sick children and more coming". Trump shook his head and agreed. He heard my son's vaccine injury story. Andy told him about Thompson and gave him Vaxxed. Dr Gary [Kampothecras], ended the meeting by saying "Donald, you are the only one who can fix this". He said " I will". We left hopeful. Lots of work left to do.

At Respectful Insolence, Orac displays a photograph of Trump and Andrew Wakefield.


 

Trump, Gingrich, Vaccines, Autism

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. 

Sara Reardon, Jeff Tollefson, Alexandra Witze & Lauren Morello report at Nature;

Some scientists have expressed fear about how Trump’s presidency will affect research in the United States. The president-elect has questioned the science underlying climate change and has linked autism to childhood vaccinations; his vice-president, Indiana governor Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution or that human activities have caused climate change. Still, some science advocates caution against a rush to judgement about how the Trump administration will approach science and research issues.

“The verdict remains out,” says Tobin Smith, vice-president for policy at the Association of American Universities in Washington DC. “There are many people who have been strong supporters of science you might not have been expecting.” Smith says that a prime example is Newt Gingrich, the former Republican congressman for Georgia, who is rumoured to be up for a top job in Trump's administration.

At this blog pointed out nearly five years ago, Gingrich has been highly critical of the vaccine notion that Trump champions:

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.

Foxx Might Chair Education Committee

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

At Education Week, Andrew Ujifusa reports that  Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) will seek to chair the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Regardless of whether she becomes the committee chairwoman, Foxx said she's "thrilled" to get a chance to work with President-elect Donald Trump.

"The opportunities that this presents to us are so fantastic," said Foxx, who was first elected in 2004.

In 2014, Foxx helped craft legislation that became a reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. And she said that one of the committee's top priorities will be a series of reauthorizations of education law, including the Higher Education Act and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. And when it comes to those issues, she plans to emphasize fiscal accountability.

"I would love to get the federal government out of education policy altogether. However, that's not going to happen. So my position is, if we're going to be involved, then we should have the money spent as well as it can be spent," Foxx said of HEA, IDEA, and other issues.

President-Elect Trump

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

Ari Ne'eman writes at Vox:

Trump has not been shy about his support for the thoroughly discredited idea that autism is caused by vaccinations. As early as the second GOP primary debate, Trump linked autism to vaccines, going on to spout the long discredited idea that “autism has become an epidemic. … Twenty-five years ago, 35 years ago, you look at the statistics, not even close. It has gotten totally out of control.”

Of course, this is not true — not only has the autism-vaccine link been shown to be false, but a growing body of scientific evidence shows that autistic people have always existed in approximately the same proportion of the general population, rather than constituting a recent epidemic. But while Trump’s comments on autism have little scientific legitimacy, they have tremendous political relevance.

Over the past 10 years, federal autism policy has witnessed a sea change. As autistic self-advocates (those of us who are autistic ourselves) began to play a bigger role in autism policymaking, discussion began on the need to shift from an overwhelming emphasis on causation, biology, and cure to promoting new investments in services, educational methodologies, and assistive technology.

Many policymakers took note of the objection from large segments of the autistic community to attempting to “cure” autism, hearing our preference to instead focus on improving the opportunity for autistic people to develop skills and lead successful lives as autistic adults. At the behest of advocates like me, Congress changed the nation’s premier autism statute from the Combating Autism Act to the Autism CARES Act, denoting a shift toward a greater emphasis on services rather than trying to make autistic people look and act “normal.”

It’s long been clear to autistic activists that Trump is aligned with the most reactionary forces in the autism community, who would prefer that none of these changes take place. He enjoyed endorsements relatively early in the cycle from prominent anti-vaccine activists who adamantly oppose recent shifts toward a more progressive autism policy. 

Daniel Marans writes at The Huffington Post:

People with disabilities and their family members are deeply afraid of what a Donald Trump presidency has in store for them ― and they are already gearing up to resist harmful policy changes.

First and foremost, advocates worry that Trump’s professed desire to weaken the country’s safety net could jeopardize the lives of vulnerable Americans. They’re also concerned that federal agencies’ roles in policing discrimination and driving reforms of law enforcement practices will change.

Although it is impossible to know how Trump will govern, his campaign platform, the Republican Party’s priorities and his bullying personality ― embodied by his campaign-trail mockery of a reporter with the joint condition arthrogryposis ― are not reassuring, according to disability rights activists. 

At Buzzfeed, Michelle Broder Van Dyke shows Twitter reactions from people with disabilities.

Lindsay Dodgson writes at Business Insider:

Many analyses of Trump's budgets are that it looks like a disaster, and this could have a bad effect on scientific funding. Deficits are likely to explode, and Trump hasn't identified any areas of science that he thinks are worth supporting.

Many scientists contacted Nature to voice their fears about the future of their research.
"This is terrifying for science, research, education, and the future of our planet," Maria Escudero Escribano, a postdoctoral scholar studying electrochemistry and and sustainable energy conversation at Stanford University, wrote on Twitter. "I guess it's time for me to go back to Europe."

"I do breast cancer research for my PhD," Sarah Hengel, a graduate student at the University of Iowa, tweeted. "Scared not only for my future but for the future of research and next years [National Institutes of Health] budget."

Election Day Thoughts on Trump and Autism

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

Mary Elizabeth Williams writes at Salon:

It’s hard to keep track of the deluge of reasons why Donald Trump is massively, historically unqualified to our nation’s commander-in-chief. But while you’re running down the lengthy list of his horrifying previous actions and his chilling vows for the future, remember to save a little bit of shock for his scientific ignorance. This is a man who, unlike even his running mate, doesn’t believe in climate change. Who thinks light bulbs cause cancer. And this is a man who has aligned himself with one of the mostly willfully, dangerously stupid populations in our nation: the anti-vaxxers.

Matt Carey writes at LBRB:

Now back to Donald Trump: missing the fact that he would be terrible president is like missing a train wreck. Let’s leave out the fact for now that he’s proved himself to be completely unfit for the main duties the president would take on with his childish outbursts and lack of self control, let’s just consider this fact:

He has no disability policy. Further, we can expect nothing from him. He has shown himself to be an arrogant ableist; a man who mocks the disabled.

Trump has no backbone. No guts. It takes guts to admit a mistake and apologize. Trump never will. Sounds a lot (LOT) like the proponents of the idea that vaccines cause autism (looking at you, Andrew Wakefield). When called out for his attack on a disabled reporter, Trump responded that the reporter should apologize (no, seriously, he did!), and further stated:

Mr. Trump stated, “Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago – if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did. He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes.”

That press release on Trump demanding an apology was one of the 10–ten!–hits on his website for the search term “disability”. None of those hits are relevant to a better life for my kid.

This is the guy you “vaccines-cause-autism” people want making policies on disability?

Autism Moms Weigh In on the Campaign

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the role of the autism issue, along with broader concerns about disability, in presidential campaigns

At The Huffington Post, Hannah Brown writes:

It’s pretty frightening to think that if Trump is elected, he will be able to appoint the head of the National Institutes of Health. And the Surgeon General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Who knows to whom President Trump would hand those jobs? Who can imagine the billions of dollars in research grants that would go to beating the dead horse of the vaccine-autism connection (about as plausible as saying that atheism causes cancer) rather than significant research, research that could potentially bring real change to the lives of people with autism?

I can’t help thinking back to when Trump mocked Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who happens to have a physical disability, at a rally last November. It was appalling then, but not worrisome — no one thought then that Trump would get the nomination. It didn’t really surprise me that Trump would act like a lowlife bully and it wasn’t keeping me up at night.

It is now.

I have a 20-year-old son with autism, and the fact that we may be days away from electing a president who thinks vaccines cause the condition and that disabled people are losers to be laughed at is terrifying.

Also at The Huffington Post, Liane Kupferberg Carter writes:

Whether it’s dismissing vets with PTSD, mocking a deaf actressor a New York Times reporter with arthrogryposis, vengefully withholding health care coverage for his nephew’s disabled infant, or making fun of Senator Harry Reid’s blinding eye injury, Trump treats people with disabilities as a punch line.

My son’s future is nothing to joke about.

It’s clear who will advocate for him. Hillary Clinton’s concern for the rights of the disabled has bracketed her entire career. Her first job out of law school was to go door to door for the Children’s Defense Fund to find out why so many children were missing school. She discovered that schools weren’t accommodating kids with disabilities. The documentation she compiled was pivotal in pushing forward the special education law that eventually became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (I.D.E.A.), the most important piece of civil rights legislation for children with disabilities ever passed in this country.

Disability and the 2016 Election

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the role of the autism issue, along with broader concerns about disability, in presidential campaigns

Sarah Blahovec writes at The Huffington Post:

Everybody should have a clear understanding of their voting rights. However, voting is one of those civic duties that we sometimes neglect to educate ourselves on until close to Election Day. Have no fear! There are a number of resources available to you in simple, clear language that can help you understand the laws surrounding voting and answer questions you have on issues ranging from voter identification laws and requirements, to who can assist you with casting your ballot, to challenges of voter competence.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has a “Your Federal Voting Rights” braille brochure and card in large-print PDF that provides a very simple overview of your rights as a voter with a disability. You can access other EAC voting accessibility resources here.

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network has published a plain-language voting rights guide entitled “VOTE. It’s Your Right: A Know-Your-Rights Guide for Voters with Mental Disabilities and Advocates.” This free guide provides a plain-language overview of the applicable voting laws and your rights and provides guidance on responding to voting challenges, getting or getting back your voting rights, and asking for assistance with voting. You can access the guide here.

Jacqueline Alemany writes at CBS:

Trump has not mentioned a plan for research or improved care for the disabled, and there is nothing on his website on this issue. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has a history of relationships with people with disabilities; she has incorporated people with disabilities into her campaign and given them featured speaking spots during her nominating convention. Clinton also has a detailed plan to help families struggling with autism. Her campaign also points out that there are ASL (American Sign Language) signers at every event, and it has even made its campaign buttons in Braille.

Overall, though, there has been little actual discussion on the campaign trail, or in the press, about what either of the candidates would actually do to help disabled Americans.

 What issues matter in the election? David Perry writes at Pacific Standard:

Without financial means, too many people with disabilities waver between institutionalization and homelessness, trapped in shelters, hospitals, prisons, or on the streets. Those institutions play a crucial role in seeing that fewer people starve, but they siphon away resources that could go toward integrated, community-based living options that offer better long-term outcomes.

One tool for integration is the Olmstead decision, a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that strengthened the requirement for public agencies to provide the “most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities.” After Olmstead, agencies legally must make “reasonable modifications” to avoid discrimination.

“Olmstead helps people with disabilities advocate for their rights to be able to live in the community with the supports they need,” says Tia Nelis, president of Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, a disability-rights organization. Under the law, “states need to come up with a plan to help make this possible,” Nelis says, but those plans are not consistent across the country. In fact, eight states have been forced to sign agreements with the federal government to start complying with the law. This is just the start of a new battle for disability rights.

Trump and Employment for Autistic Adults: He Lied

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

On January 11, Justin Chappell reported at The Respectability Report:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he’ll be working on a plan to provide more opportunities for autistic adults to work.

Jane, a self-described autistic woman, asked Trump for a plan to help “autistic adults like myself get employed.”

“We’re going to work on it,” he replied on Saturday in Clear Lake, Iowa. “You’ll be happy. Just watch.”

As of November 5,he has no such plan.

At the same site on November 2, Jennifer Bohlman reported:

As part of the #PwDsVote Disability Questionnaire, the nonpartisan, nonprofit disability organization RespectAbility asked candidates running for president, senate or governor about their plans for promoting employment among people with disabilities. Every candidate was given an equal opportunity to respond and if they are not listed, it is because they declined to answer.

Clinton responded in detail.  But as for Trump....

 NOTE: Donald Trump declined to respond to the survey.

On Trump's website, the issues page has nothing about autism.  At PBS, Judy Woodruff reports: "Trump doesn’t address disability issues in detail on his Web site. He discusses the issue mostly through the lens of military veterans and PTSD." ( And he has suggested that vets with PTSD are not "strong.")

Autism Parents on Trump

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

Nicole Jankowsky writes at Upworthy:

If Donald Trump becomes president, I believe my family has so much to lose. And I’m scared.

Now, as a family, we have made peace with autism. My son is part of autism, and autism is a part of him. I do not think we would change it — it’s been part of us so long.

But I'm worried because you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat those who need help: the temporarily infirm, the disabled and the elderly, the sick and the poor.

Those who have a path harder to walk than most. It’s an idea that goes beyond Republican and Democrat and floats in the soft space of humanity: taking care of those people in our country that cannot, through no fault of their own, care for themselves.
As Trump laughs at disabled reporters, mocks a deaf actress, and questions essential foundations of national health, I worry about the future — my future, my son’s future, your future. Trump's lack of empathy is what truly makes me afraid.

I worry that if Trump is our president, there will be a dangerous shift in tolerance toward children and adults like my son.

If the president of the United States makes fun of disabled persons, who will stop the children on the playground? Will my son be the victim of taunts and harassment from kids or even grown adults who are just modeling the behavior of the most powerful man in the country?

I can’t vote for the school-yard bully. So, world, I have a simple request: Think about your own children. And if you can, think about mine.

Electing Donald Trump will speak dangerous loud volumes — far more than a parent’s words could ever say. That kind of president is not one I want.

WTVD-TV in Raleigh-Durham, NC reports:

North Carolina voters are divided nearly down the middle this presidential election and we asked you why you were supporting your candidate. Here's what viewers had to say about their support of Hillary Clinton.

Burnette Brown's response on our Facebook page was the most liked out of nearly 600 comments. Her response read in part:

"Hillary is the lesser of the two evils sometimes bad experience is better than no experience, this is one of those cases."

Amy Hodges, had the second most liked response, and her reasons for voting Clinton were very personal.

"I'm voting for Hillary because I have twin 7 year olds with Autism: I don't think that they have a place in Donald Trump's America," she said. "I need a president that will stand up for their rights and show the world that they are different, not less. Not a president who will mock and bully them."

The Integration Mandate

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

The US Department of Justice has issued a statement: "Application of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C. to State and Local Governments' Employment Service Systems for Individuals with Disabilities."

Nationally, millions of individuals with disabilities spend the majority of their daytime hours receiving employment and day services in segregated sheltered workshops and segregated day settings (including day treatment programs or facility-based day habilitation centers) where they are segregated from non-disabled persons. Many of these individuals are capable of working competitively and earning minimum wage or above in integrated employment and are not opposed to doing so, but they have been unable to access the services and supports that would allow them to find, obtain, and succeed in competitive integrated employment. In the approximately seventeen years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581 (1999), regarding the integration mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), some state and local service systems have begun to provide a greater number of integrated community alternatives to individuals in or at risk of segregation in institutions or other segregated settings; yet, despite these advances, many individuals with disabilities who receive employment and day services that are planned, funded, and administered by state and local governments continue unnecessarily to receive services, and spend the majority of their daytime hours, in segregated settings.

A core purpose of the ADA is to “assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency” for individuals with disabilities.1 The integration mandate of Title II of the ADA is intended to allow individuals with disabilities to live integrated lives like individuals without disabilities, including by working, earning a living, and paying taxes. The civil rights of persons with disabilities, including individuals with mental illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, or physical disabilities, are violated by unnecessary segregation in a wide variety of settings, including in segregated employment, vocational, and day programs.

Since the passage of the ADA and the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead, the ADA’s Title II integration mandate has been applied in a variety of contexts. The ADA’s integration mandate applies to all the services, programs, and activities of state and local governments, including their employment service systems.2 This guide discusses and explains the requirements of the ADA integration mandate and Olmstead as applied to employment service systems for individuals with disabilities. It complements and supplements, but does not supersede, the “Statement of the Department of Justice on Enforcement of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C.” (June 22, 2011).3

Wakefield for Trump

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.

Orac writes at Respectful Insolence:

If there’s one thing you might not realize, it’s that antivaccinationists (at least many of them) love Donald Trump. Love him. For example, our good buddy and antivaccine conspiracy theorist, Jake Crosby, whom I like to refer to as Young Master Crosby (or, if I’m on Twitter, The Gnat), has been posting Hillary for Prison graphics, urging people to donate to the Trump campaign, and generally worshiping the ground Donald Trump walks on. Elsewhere, a man every bit as deranged as The Gnat, Mike Adams, has been delivering a steady stream of pro-Trump propaganda, along with his other pseudoscience, quackery, and lies, for several months now. More recently, the Grand Poobah of the Antivaccine Movement himself, the man who almost singlehandedly brought measles back to the UK by using a crappy fraudulent case report to frighten parents with the lie that the MMR vaccine causes autism, Andrew Wakefield, has stated that this is a “one issue” election:

To be honest, I have a hard time believing that Andrew Wakefield is so stupid that he’d be repeating the utterly risible claim that by 2032 one out of two children will have autism and that the pharmaceutical industry and government somehow want this? Does Wakefield have any self-awareness? Does he have a clue just how stupid that sounds? He probably does, but it’s all about the con, and the antivaccine activists he’s addressing actually believe such flagrant nonsense. In any case, Wakefield strongly endorsed Donald Trump because Trump believes that vaccines cause autism. In fact, he claims to have met with Donald Trump and that Trump told him he’s on Wakefield’s (and, by extension, the antivaccinationists’) side. He then lays down an even bigger whopper, claiming that, if Hillary Clinton is elected President, within two years there will be mandatory vaccination nationwide. Clearly, either Wakefield doesn’t know how our federalist system operates and that it is the states, not the federal government, that determine school vaccination requirements, or he doesn’t care. I suspect the latter. Again, Wakefield is not stupid. He is a liar. But who knows? To be able to make such ridiculously over-the-top claims, he must be, in my opinion, either stupid or lying. Take your pick.

Either way, that Andrew Wakefield supports Donald Trump (even though, as a British citizen, he can’t vote in our election) is not surprising. Donald Trump has been spouting antivaccine tropes, pseudoscience, and nonsense for a long time now. What was far more disturbing to me is that in the video Wakefield claimed to have met with Trump a couple of days before to discuss vaccines and autism. That’s right. If Wakefield is to be believed, the foremost antivaccine conspiracy theorist in the world, who made what is currently the most paranoid conspiracy theory “documentary” right now, met with a major party candidate for President, who told him he shares his views. That frightens me, and it should frighten you, too.