Now that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a large organization with a $1.7 trillion budget that manages research into both autism and vaccines, his unfounded claims that childhood vaccinations cause autism are coming under increased scrutiny.
The idea that childhood immunizations cause autism was first put up in 1998 by a British physician who was later barred from practicing medicine in the UK, although it has since been disproved. Vaccines are safe, according to hundreds of research. According to estimates from the World Health Organization, vaccinations have prevented 154 million deaths worldwide in the last 50 years.
Kennedy has blamed vaccines for the significant increase in autism diagnoses in recent decades, which have skyrocketed from an estimated 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 now. Kennedy is a proponent of several conspiracy theories pertaining to health. According to research, a large portion of that growth can be attributed to improvements in diagnostic technology, a shift in the definition of autism to cover milder forms on the spectrum that were not previously identified, and more awareness and screening for the disorder.
According to Ari Neeman, co-founder of the nonprofit Autistic Self Advocacy Network and an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the anti-vaccine movement has long been taking advantage of families of autistic people by creating a market for pseudo-scientific treatments that don’t offer the answers they seek and may actually put autistic people in danger. The solution is not more debunked conspiracy theories that link vaccines to autism.
People are more likely to believe conspiracy theories about diseases with known causes than about conditions like autism, whose causes are complicated and unclear, according to Timothy Caulfield, research director at the University of Alberta’s Health Law Institute in Canada.
For example, people are less likely to conjecture about other possible origins for Down syndrome, which has long been thought to be brought on by an extra copy of chromosome 21 and results in intellectual difficulties.
According to Judith Miller, a clinical psychologist and senior scientist and training director at the Center for Autism Research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, “it’s really a shame because there are vulnerable families [of people with autism] who need our support.” The time and money squandered trying to disprove a conspiracy theory is equivalent to the time and money lost trying to figure out how to support families.
A complex condition
According to Manish Arora, a professor of environmental medicine and climate science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, determining the origins of autism is challenging because it is not a single condition.
According to Arora, autism is a spectrum disorder rather than a single, specific illness. There are a lot of things under one roof.
“There are many paths to autism and many presentations of autism,” Miller noted, despite the fact that people with autism frequently share comparable skills and struggles.
There is no one explanation for autism, a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people connect with others, communicate, learn, and conduct. However, scientists have identified a number of risk factors for autism, the majority of which occur before to birth.
Many characteristics that are occasionally observed in individuals with autism, such as sensitivity to loud noises or difficulty interpreting social cues, are also present in those without an autism diagnosis. Arora, founder and CEO of a start-up business that studies biomarkers for autism and other neurological illnesses, stated that doctors diagnose autism based on a person’s behavior and that there is no easy test for the condition like there is for diabetes or COVID.
It is considerably easier to identify the cause of infectious diseases like influenza, which is brought on by the flu virus.
“Vaccines are the one thing we know doesn’t cause autism,” said Catherine Lord, a psychologist and researcher at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine’s Center for Autism Research and Treatment, although researchers continue to examine the variables that affect the development of autistic symptoms.
Genetic vulnerability
The fact that autism may run in families has long led doctors to believe that genes play a significant part in the disorder. For instance, if one of the identical twins, who have all of the same DNA, has autism, the other twin typically does too. According to an examination of research papers, the likelihood that one of two fraternal twins, who share roughly half of their DNA, will also have autism ranges from 53% to 67%.
According to Miller, researchers have found over 100 genes linked to autism, and it is thought that genes are involved in 60–80% of cases.
According to Dr. Gregory Cejas, medical director of the Autism Clinical Center and Fragile X Clinic at the Washington University School of Medicine, our understanding of the genetics of autism has never been greater. Regarding the known genetic origins of autism, we are making significant progress.
However, it is evident that genes do not account for all cases of autism.
Autism differs greatly from single-gene disorders such as sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis. According to Lord, scientists think that environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility combine to cause autistic symptoms in people.
According to Lord, there are a plethora of distinct genetic patterns linked to autism, but none of them are exclusively or consistently linked to the disorder.
For instance, the most prevalent known cause of autism is fragile X syndrome, which is brought on by a gene mutation on the X chromosome. However, Miller noted that only a small percentage of kids with the genetic mutation go on to acquire autism. Some people may be more susceptible to autistic traits as a result of this mutation, whereas others who carry the same mutation may not experience autistic symptoms because they are protected by as-yet-unidentified protective mechanisms.
Since autistic symptoms typically appear between the ages of 12 and 15 months, when toddlers receive the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, some have linked the vaccine to autism. However, Miller points out that the majority of the genetic disorders that impact our lives and health are not visible at birth. Although the genetic information will have been present throughout, symptoms or traits won’t appear until later.
Prenatal vulnerability
According to Arora, a large number of the recognized risk factors for autistic traits manifest either prior to or during delivery. Autism is more likely to develop in babies who suffer birth difficulties, such as the umbilical cord wrapping around their neck.
So do prematurely born babies, possibly as a result of anything that occurred during pregnancy.
According to Miller, children who have older fathers and possibly older moms are likewise marginally more likely to receive an autism diagnosis. It’s unclear whether socioeconomic factors or something in the biology of older parents contribute to a child’s increased risk of autism. It’s probable that older parents have greater access to medical treatment, increasing the likelihood that their child may be diagnosed with autism.
Numerous studies have shown that a mother’s health affects her child’s risk of autism in a number of ways: Pregnant women who experienced high levels of air pollution or who suffered a major illness like the flu or pneumonia are more likely to have children with autism.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s Neeman stated that while he has nothing against fundamental biological study on autism or its causes, he believes that these studies don’t go far enough in assisting those with autism in overcoming the obstacles they encounter on a daily basis.
He points out that support and services for individuals with autism account for just 8.4% of the $419 million spent on autism research in the US.
“We need an autism research agenda that reflects the true priorities of autistic people and our families: inclusion in the community and supports throughout the lifespan,” he stated.
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