The president cited no evidence for his claims.
Research has found no evidence of increased rates of autism among those who are vaccinated compared to those who are not. Vaccines also undergo intensive safety testing. Research shows that genetics play a role in autism diagnoses. The NIH says some possible risk factors for autism include prenatal exposure to pesticides or air pollution, extreme prematurity or low birth weight, certain maternal health conditions, or parents conceiving at an older age.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said next month, the federal government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is “preparing a major new initiative focused on foundational causes and biology of autism.”
“We will examine every biologically plausible hypothesis and leave no legitimate, scientific question unexplored,” Kennedy said. “Mr. President, you have told us you want answers, so do I. We have just over two years to finish the work and I know you’re impatient. And we are moving with an urgency that that deadline demands. We will bring you actions and findings as soon as they are read.”
Mr. Trump promised “nothing bad can happen” from the research his administration is doing on autism.
Going to be a wild ride. Is the group of unvaccinated kids the control group, or is it the vaccinated ones? You’ll have to design in a way to account for “missing” vaccines to make sure groups of parents aren’t cheating either way. Are we taking blood samples from everyone at birth to be able to check against later in case someone leaves the country and comes back in with unexplained antibodies?
“Unexplained Antibodies” would be a good band name
Another good one would be “Questionable Consent.”
So, my evolving understanding of this is that it takes about that long for the first signs of autism to show up. So I have a few honest, unresolved questions.
As it stands now I really don’t see how we get helpful data out of this.
Who knew science could be so complicated?!
It’s not really that complicated if you already know the results you want.
The cherry on top is how the N=murica trial with no ethics guardrails won’t generate any usable results. All the federal agencies who would collate increased rates of everything were gutted at the top levels. Whether it falls back to state/county/word-of-mouth levels remains to be seen and will likely be regional.
You are correct. I was making a bad joke poorly referenceing the incompetence of this Executive: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/321318-trump-nobody-knew-that-healthcare-could-be-so-complicated/
I forgot that with all the years long slow burn of US soft power that only gets interupted by someone throwing bags of it into a bonfire to make something up for the news cycle.