Children's Health Defense

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

His antivax organization has the Orwellian name of "Children's Health Defense."

Shannon Bond at NPR:

Today, CHD is a prolific content creator and a leading source of false and misleading claims about vaccines — including the long-debunked false claim that vaccines cause autism. It operates a daily newsletter, a streaming video channel, and a movie division. In 2020, it helped finance a sequel to the viral "Plandemic" video, which baselessly alleged the COVID-19 pandemic was planned as part of a global conspiracy. The next year it put out a film targeting disproven claims about vaccines at Black Americans.

Legal advocacy is also a significant focus of CHD's work. In 2019, the group unsuccessfully sued New York over the state's school vaccine requirements amid a measles outbreak. During the COVID pandemic its legal work ballooned, CHD president Mary Holland said in an interview with NPR.
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[Dr. Paul] Offit said he is seeing evidence that confidence in vaccines is eroding among some Americans, pointing to falling vaccination rates for kindergarteners and rising cases of measles and whooping cough.

"The voices of misinformation and disinformation have gotten louder and better funded and more ubiquitous. So it's much, much harder to push against that," Offit said. "And I do think at heart, most people do trust their doctors. Most people do get vaccinated. Most people do trust vaccines. But I think what's happened is you're starting to see a fraying at the edges."

Kennedy is still on leave from CHD, and while his name remains on some of its lawsuits, Holland said he is "not involved on a day-to-day basis." She declined to comment on whether CHD would change its legal strategy if Kennedy were to be confirmed as HHS secretary.

Last month, on her weekly online broadcast, Holland celebrated Kennedy's nomination.

"Game on. We are really there," she told her co-host, Polly Tommey. "And it's not going to be easy, Polly, but look at how far we've come.

Biden Administration Moves to End the Subminimum Wage

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of people on the autism spectrum.

Jacqueline Alemany at WP:

The Biden administration is moving to phase out a Depression-era program that allows some employers to pay disabled workers far less than minimum wage, fulfilling one of President Joe Biden’s campaign promises and triggering what is likely to become a fierce legal and political battle.

The decision is the culmination of the Department of Labor’s year-long review of the program, which opponents have criticized as a form of discrimination and supporters have described as providing disabled people with hard-to-find opportunities for steady wages and meaningful work. The agency will issue a proposed rule Tuesday that would immediately halt the issuance of certificates that allow employers to pay less than minimum wage and institute a three year phaseout period for employers that already hold those certificates.

Before it can take effect, the rule will be subject to a public comment period, possible legal challenges and the scrutiny of the incoming Trump administration. The public comment period is expected to conclude on Jan. 17, 2025, just days before Donald Trump takes office. His administration will have to evaluate and respond to those comments, and then issue a final rule — or withdraw the rule entirely.

Labor Department press release:

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a proposed rule that would phase out the issuance of certificates allowing employers to pay some workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour, for the work they perform.

The rule proposes to gradually eliminate certificates employers can apply for under Section 14(c) of Fair Labor Standards Act that allow them to pay certain workers with disabilities subminimum wages. The department proposes to discontinue the issuance of new certificates and establish a three-year phase-out period for employers with existing certificates once a final rule becomes effective.

“This proposal demonstrates the Biden-Harris administration’s dedication to good jobs for workers with disabilities,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “In the decades since Section 14(c) was included in the Fair Labor Standards Act, there have been significant legal and policy developments that have dramatically expanded employment opportunities and rights for individuals with disabilities. With this proposal, the department expects that many workers currently paid subminimum wages under Section 14(c) will move into jobs that pay full wages, which will improve their economic wellbeing and strengthen inclusion for people with disabilities in the workforce.”

The proposed rule would do the following:

• Cease the department’s issuance of new Section 14(c) certificates starting on the effective date of a final rule.
• Institute a three-year period beginning on the effective date of a final rule for employers holding existing Section 14(c) certificates to gradually cease paying subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.

RFK Jr. Talked to Vaccine Scientists, But Disregarded Them

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

As G.K. Chesterton wrote, a madman "is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point."

Vivian Salama, Sadie Gurman, and C. Ryan Barber at WSJ:

[Dr. Paul] Offit said he walked Kennedy through a slew of studies, which Offit said didn’t show any harm from mercury in vaccines. He noted that by 2001, the U.S. had removed a preservative containing mercury from vaccines for young children as a precautionary measure. Still, Kennedy wrote a 2005 article linking vaccines to autism in Rolling Stone and Salon, which both publications later retracted.

A 2015 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association of the health records of 95,000 children showed the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine didn’t increase the risk of autism.
...

Vaccine scientists have met with Kennedy and answered his questions on multiple occasions, people familiar with the conversations said, explaining that all vaccines go through safety testing ahead of their release and are also monitored after. Some shots for children, if tests in adults show that they safely prevent deadly diseases, don’t undergo placebo testing, because medical experts consider it unethical to withhold proven lifesaving treatment.

Vaccinologist Peter Hotez, who has a daughter with autism, also spoke to Kennedy in a series of phone calls in 2017—conversations initially brokered by Fauci.

“He had already set it in his mind that vaccines cause autism,” Hotez said, adding: “He didn’t have a lot of interest in the science, and wasn’t willing to bend.”

Trump to Nominate Antivax Profiteer to Head the FBI

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze  the bizarre theories surrounding vaccines.

Trump will nominate Kash Patel to head the FBI. In April Isaac Schorr reported at Mediaite:

Kash Patel, who served as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense in former President Donald Trump’s administration and is widely expected to be tapped for a national security role in a prospective second term, is hawking pills that claim to reverse the effects of the Covid vaccines.

Patel captioned his post, “Mrna detox, reverse the vaxx n get healthy with @warrioressentials,” and tacked on a promotional graphic touting Warrior Essentials’ “Spike Protein Recovery System.”

“You were immune to the propaganda, but are you immune to the shedders,” reads the graphic. The system is comprised of three separate pill types that the company insists removes “toxins” from your cells, repairs “circulatory health,” and finally, restores “immunity and DNA stability.”

“Shedding,” according to Warrior Essentials, refers to a claim of “spike protein transmission from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated.”

“It’s important to understand we may all be at risk from spike proteins and covid vaccines, even if we are unvaccinated,” insists the pill company. “Studies have shown viral shedding of spike proteins is happening and it appears the messenger RNA is transferring from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. This means the unvaccinated can be at risk for the same complications and negative effects as those who took the shots.” Vaccine shedding is considered a myth by most medical practitioners.

The RFK Danger

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Ashleigh Fields at The Hill:

Scott Gottlieb, who served as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during President-elect Trump’s first term, expressed concerns with the pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) due to his anti-vaccine advocacy.

“I think if RFK follows through on his intentions, and I believe he will, and I believe he can, it will cost lives in this country,” he said during a Friday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“You’re going to see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down, and like I said, if we lose another 5 percent [of vaccinations], which could happen in the next year or two, we will see large measles outbreaks,” he continued.

Many are worried Kennedy, who would need to be confirmed by the Senate to become HHS secretary, will amplify vaccine hesitancy for children despite his promise not to take away vaccines.

Gottlieb said he doesn’t think Trump wants to see a “resurgence” in infectious diseases, such as measles, polio and whopping cough. But he noted the nation’s doctors aren’t prepared to provide patients with diagnoses for diseases that have been largely absent for several decades, which could rise if vaccine rates drop.

 

RFK Linked Vaccines to Holocaust, Called for Jailing Dr. Paul Offit

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Brandy Zadrozny at NBC:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a dark view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, he called the federal agency’s vaccine division a fascist enterprise and accused it of knowingly hurting children. He also compared what he saw as a widespread conspiracy to hide harms from the child vaccination program to the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

“The word ‘fascism’ in Italian means a bundle of sticks, and what it means is the bundle is more important than the sticks,” Kennedy said in previously unreported remarks in 2019 to a private audience at AutismOne, a conference for parents of autistic children. “The institution, CDC and the vaccine program, is more important than the children that it’s supposed to protect.

...

Kennedy made these remarks and others — most previously unreported — over years of appearances at AutismOne. The comments, dating back to 2013, include claims that the CDC is a “cesspool of corruption,” filled with profiteers, harming children in a way he also likened to “Nazi death camps.”
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At the 2013 AutismOne question-and-answer session, when asked about the CDC’s motives for failing to acknowledge autism as an epidemic, Kennedy made a comparison to the Holocaust.

“To me this is like Nazi death camps, what happened to these kids,” Kennedy said of the rising number of children diagnosed with autism and what he described as a link to vaccines — which had been debunked over a decade earlier. “I can’t tell you why somebody would do something like that. I can’t tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust.”

He also gave more detail on the people he believed belonged in prison.

“I don’t think this is going to happen because they always manage, the bad guys somehow manage to weasel their way out of it,” he said. “But I would do a lot to see Paul Offit, all these ‘good people,’ behind bars.”

Dr. Paul Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine. He currently serves on a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee. Asked for comment, Offit said Kennedy had targeted him and others on government vaccine panels for nearly two decades as main characters in baseless conspiracy theories, attacks that have invited harassment and threats.

The Project 2025 Threat

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

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.

The Trumpist Project 2025 would gut that law, wiping out protections for all those students.  See here for details:

It would also scrap the entire Department of Education.

During the campaign, Trump denied any connection with Project 2025 but is now stocking his administration with its architects.

 Deborah Spitalnik at NJ Spotlight News:

Project 2025’s elimination of the federal Department of Education abdicates our responsibility as a society to provide children with equitable opportunities for learning and skill development to become productive, successful adults. For the 18% of school-age children receiving special education services in New Jersey and their counterparts across the country, the right to education came about through the courts and eventually federal law, now IDEA — the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The Department of Education has an essential role in protecting rights, ensuring access and quality for children and young adults with disabilities, and requiring individual schools and each state to provide education that enables students with disabilities to learn and pursue life goals as do their typical peers. Project 2025 would allow states to use federal funds without oversight and opt out of educational programs, relegating students with disabilities to at best, second-class citizenship. Moving educational functions to the Department of Health and Human Services threatens students with disabilities, diminishing the power of education as a fundamental right and source of development for all children. As in threatening to change federal grant-making in the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, Project 2025 would eliminate Department of Education competitive grants, reducing educational innovation and improvement. For children with disabilities, federal grants to New Jersey have contributed to access to the general curriculum, creating positive school climates enabling all students to learn, and preparing students for adult life and employment. Project 2025 would eliminate these sources of innovation, stifling progress and foreclosing opportunities hard-won by years of advocacy. Head Start — which provides preschool education and health services in New Jersey for 12,748 poor children with and without disabilities, as well as families and pregnant women — would be eliminated by Project 2025.

More on Weldon

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Trump is nominating former Rep. Dave Weldon to head CDC.  David Gorski at Science-Based Medicine:

During his 14 years in Congress, Weldon funneled his belief in an “autism epidemic.” He also apparently believed in the thimerosal-autism link, to the point of promoting highly dubious studies and attacking decent studies examining whether mercury in childhood vaccines had been responsible for such an “epidemic.” Back in the day, he even spoke at antivax “conferences” falsely billed as scientific conferences:

Understanding autism and searching for a cure is a passion that I will continue to carry with me. In 2004, I delivered an address at the Defeat Autism Now Conference and the keynote address to the Autism One Conference in Chicago regarding the autism epidemic affecting one in 163 children. I challenged public health officials to direct the funding to defeat this epidemic. Today, autism affects one in 88 children. America can’t afford further delay in autism research.

Defeat Autism Now! was the umbrella organization for a lot of antivax quacks abusing children with “autism biomed” treatments to “cure” them of the “vaccine injury” blamed by antivaxxers for their autism, while the Autism One conference was the longstanding fake medical conference held in Chicago annually for many years that showcased all forms of antivax and autism quackery. For those of you not familiar with Autism One, It was at the 2013 Autism One conference that RFK Jr. likened vaccines to the Holocaust, at least to my knowledge, and where Kerri Rivera described feeding bleach to children in 2012 to treat their autism.

Back in 2003-2004, Weldon used his position in Congress to write letters to then-CDC Director Julie Gerberding demanding an “investigation” of supposed links between vaccines and autism. Basically, the letters made the same claims that RFK Jr. made in his 2005 conspiracyfest Deadly Immunity. Recall that the central claim in RFK Jr.’s article, co-published by Rolling Stone and Salon.com (to their eternal shame), was that there was evidence that thimerosal in vaccines was associated with a highly elevated risk of autism in children but that the CDC, at a meeting in 2000, “covered it up.” This is a claim that I like to call the Simpsonwood conspiracy theory, after the conference center where the meeting was held, an example of the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement (at least in the US), one I’ve deconstructed in the past. Weldon, even though he’s a physician, fell for the Simpsonwood conference conspiracy theory, promoted a year and a half later by antivaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hook, line, and sinker. The first letter regurgitates the “concerns” being promoted by the antivaccine movement at the time. The second letter turned up the heat, trying to persuade Gerberding to postpone an important Institute of Medicine conference until the “concern” about the Verstraeten study had been addressed. As we all know, the IOM conference did go on and the IOM report found (and strongly stated) that there was no evidence to support correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism risk. Once again, antivaxxers were deceptively looking at standard epidemiological and statistical techniques to account for confounders as something nefarious, as they misrepresented how the observed “association” between thimerosal and autism risk declined and disappeared as appropriate confounders were accounted for as the CDC intentionally “covering up” an association, and Weldon was the Congressional spearhead for this conspiracy theory.

Truly, the vaccination program and public health efforts by the CDC are in serious jeopardy, even worse than I had imagined. I suppose I should be happy that Trump didn’t appoint Andrew Wakefield as CDC Director.

RFK and CA

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

At a Sacramento event in 2015, Kennedy said: “They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone, This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”

 Ana Ibarra at CalMatters:

Five years ago, hundreds of people crowded the halls of the state Capitol protesting legislation that sought to tighten California’s vaccine rules. Outside, music blasted something about a revolution and people carried signs that read “Vaccine mandates violate bodily autonomy.”

From the sea of red-clad protesters emerged a familiar face idolized by the anti-vaccine activists: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He was the guest of honor in one of the biggest public health showdowns the state has seen in recent years. Ultimately, he and his followers lost — the Legislature passed a law to clamp down on fraudulent or inappropriate medical exemptions for required childhood vaccines.

Today, Kennedy finds himself on a bigger stage with potentially far more influence and power. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated the former environmental lawyer turned controversial vaccine critic to oversee the nation’s health policy as secretary of Health and Human Services.

He has been known to make false, and at times dangerous, claims about medicine and public health. Perhaps most infamously he linked vaccines to autism — a claim that has been debunked over and over again.
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Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician who as a state senator authored the 2019 medical exemption law and a separate law that eliminated personal belief exemptions for childhood vaccines, said having a health secretary who casts doubt on vaccines is “a danger” and “disturbing.”

“I imagine we’re going to see a lot more direct attacks on individual scientists, individual people. I’m anticipating that I’m probably gonna be hoisted somewhere by those guys as well. I don’t think RFK Jr. has forgotten about me yet,” he said.

Weldon to CDC

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

Lena H. Sun at WP:

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced that Dave Weldon is his choice to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the federal government’s top public health agency.

Weldon, 71, is a medical doctor and former lawmaker who served in the House, representing Florida. The former congressman has been a strong critic of the CDC, especially its vaccine program. Weldon has championed the long-debunked notion that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, is linked to autism.

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Weldon was one of the few members of Congress to support the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism and pushed the government to study a connection between vaccines and autism. He was a founding member of the Congressional Autism Caucus and pushed for thimerosal to be removed from vaccines.

Thimerosal was largely removed from all childhood vaccines in 2001. Flu shots were an exception; Weldon sponsored legislation to ban preservative levels of thimerosal from them as well. In a 2008 press release, he accused the CDC of prioritizing high immunization rates while “vaccine safety ranks near the bottom both in priorities and funding.”

...

If Kennedy and Weldon are confirmed, they could influence the vaccine recommendation process by naming vaccine skeptics to the agency’s vaccine advisory committee.

Known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, the committee examines safety and effectiveness data once a vaccine has been authorized or approved by the FDA. It recommends who should get the medicine, how many doses and how often. Its recommendations have to be approved by the CDC director to become policy. The recommendations help determine whether the vaccines are covered at no cost for children and adults.

The committee has up to 19 members whose expertise includes virology, immunology, pediatrics and infectious diseases. They are nominated by the CDC and approved by the HHS secretary. No members are federal government employees.

Antivaxxers and the HHS Transition

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Alice Miranda Ollstein and Adam Cancryn at Politico:

In an email obtained by POLITICO, Kennedy ally Kim Haine reached out to a prospective candidate to set up an interview for a top HHS job, identifying herself as part of the “[Make America Healthy Again] transition team.” Haine is the president of the Hawaii chapter of Children’s Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine group that Kennedy chaired until he resigned in 2023 to run for president. She also led the effort to get Kennedy on the Hawaii ballot earlier this year.

“Our transition team would like to gauge your interest in helping advance our MAHA initiatives,” she wrote to one candidate.

Haine did not respond to questions about her role.

The team that Kennedy is relying on to help vet resumes for incoming HHS staff, conduct interviews and offer advice also includes Del Bigtree, a prominent anti-vaccine figure who runs the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network.

And Aaron Siri, a vaccine injury attorney whose law firm has done millions of dollars of legal work for Bigtree’s ICAN, has been deeply involved in the vetting process as well, according to three people familiar with the matter. Siri specialized in challenging Covid vaccine mandates at schools and workplaces during the pandemic, and has also served as Kennedy’s personal attorney.

ASAN Opposes the RFK Nomination

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network opposes the nomination:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the founder of Children’s Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccine group. He has claimed that no vaccine has been proven safe and effective, that the recommended vaccine schedule for children is dangerous, and that “autism does come from vaccines.” He has also fought against COVID-19 vaccination, falsely calling an early COVID vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

Vaccines are safe and effective. Vaccines do not cause autism. The idea that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to autism comes from one fraudulent 1998 publication claiming that the vaccine had caused autistic traits in 12 children. The man responsible for this publication, Andrew Wakefield, used unethical methods and failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest. The paper did not give enough evidence for its claim that the MMR vaccine could cause autism. It was later retracted by the journal that published it, and Wakefield had his medical license revoked.

In spite of the fraudulent origins of the idea that vaccines cause autism, and in spite of decades of replicable research proving that this is not true, some people, like Kennedy, continue to perpetuate the myth. These lies do very real harm to the autistic community. Kennedy has described autistic people in insulting ways meant to inspire fear, saying that “their brain is gone” and that the purported effects of vaccination are “a Holocaust.” By working to prevent childhood vaccination, he effectively communicates the message that living as an autistic person is a worse fate than dying of measles or pertussis.

The anti-vaccine movement has led to a wave of fake “autism cures,” many of which have very real health risks. Kennedy recently promoted two of these fake cures when he accused the FDA of suppressing “hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds.” Hyperbaric therapy, a treatment for decompression sickness in divers, has been promoted as a fake autism cure in spite of a complete lack of evidence and associated health risks. Chelation, a treatment for heavy metal poisoning, is another fake cure, and its off-label use for autism has been associated with at least one death.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies claim that autistic people did not exist in his youth and that “I have never in my life seen a man my age with full-blown autism.” The idea that autistic people of Kennedy’s age (70) do not exist is not true. Autistic people have always been here, but before widespread autism diagnosis, we either went undiagnosed, or received different diagnoses than would be used today — for example, the outdated diagnosis of “childhood schizophrenia” for autism, or diagnosing people who today would only have an autism diagnosis with intellectual disability. Autistic people in Kennedy’s generation were all too often institutionalized or incarcerated. Even if Kennedy is telling the truth about not seeing us, that does not mean we were not there.

Of course, Kennedy’s lies about vaccines do not just hurt autistic people. Kennedy and his nonprofit played an active role in a recent measles outbreak in American Samoa, spreading vaccine misinformation until the vaccination rate dropped low enough that 5,700 people were infected with measles, and 83 people died. Kennedy has also made false claims about COVID-19 vaccine trials and about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, blaming unrelated deaths on COVID vaccinations. Anti-vaccine misinformation like that promoted by Kennedy’s group has led to a reduced rate of childhood vaccinations in the United States since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

RFK to HHS

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 number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

 Eric Michael Garcia at MSNBC:

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services symbolizes a major regression when it comes to the humane treatment of autistic people. By picking Kennedy, he is wrongly elevating someone who sees autism, and therefore autistic people, as problems to be solved. He doesn’t see us as having a disability that deserves to be accepted.

The Kennedy pick also symbolizes a moral loss. Not just because of his opposition to vaccines, but also because of his opinions of autistic people. Of course, he believes that autistic people are largely the result of vaccines, making us evidence that Big Pharma is a danger.

If Kennedy becomes HHS secretary, he would likely cause incalculable harm.

Riley Beggin at USA Today:

Most Republican senators appear ready to support Kennedy Jr. to the influential Cabinet position inside the incoming Trump administration even as they are being hounded about how they'll vote for even more controversial nominees, such as former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be Trump's attorney general and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense.

"RFK Jr. has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure," said Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who has been openly critical of Trump and who serves on the Senate Finance Committee that will vet Kennedy. “I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda."

Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who will chair the Finance committee next year, said in a statement that Kennedy “prioritized addressing chronic diseases through consumer choice and healthy lifestyle,” adding: “I look forward to considering his nomination.”