A Midwestern Doctor Attempts To Show Vaccines Cause Autism & Fails Part One
Is he right? Pass the word salad dressing please.
Truthfully, I don’t have the evidence so I’ll refrain from making any claim. And it isn’t that important anyway.
What is obvious is that he is a master of word salad and gish gallop. His articles ramble on so much that the reader feels like a prisoner being interrogated who finally yells, “Please, I give up…I believe you…please stop!”
In 2023, he wrote a substack article titled “How Do Vaccines Cause Autism?”
In short, he intended to prove that they do. But was he right?
There is way too much to unfold here, as there is a limit to the words we can use and to the attention span of most readers. Therefore, I will write a series of articles, with this being the first.
So let’s look at some of the claims to start and see what we can come up with.
Chapter One
Quoting
is not a very good start. I just covered him in my first substack article.Claim #1
Regressive autism always develops shortly after vaccination—but never before, something that cannot happen unless one causes the other.
False. There is no evidence that children aren’t vaccinated after being diagnosed with regressive autism. Regressive autism typically begins to develop between the ages of 15 and 30 months, with the average age of diagnosis being around 19 months. MMR vaccines start with the first dose at 12-15 months of age.
Since the first vaccine is at birth, it’s pretty hard to be diagnosed with RA first.
Autism rates are essentially equal between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated alone falsifies the statement.1
Claim #2
Likewise, there is a significant amount of evidence correlating vaccine uptake with autism rates.
No, there isn’t. I’ll expand on that as we move along and discuss the evidence.
Claim #3
There is presently no accepted explanation for what is causing the explosion of autism we are facing.
What’s “accepted” seems to mean what is acceptable to HIM.
Awareness and changing criteria probably account for the bulk of the rise in prevalence, but biological factors might also contribute. For example, having older parents, particularly an older father, may boost the risk of autism. Children born prematurely also are at increased risk of autism, and more premature infants survive now than ever before.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-reasons-autism-rates-are-up-in-the-u-s/
He goes on to point readers to Kirch’s article. The article presents no science or evidence whatsoever.
Claim #4
There are over 214 papers in the peer-review medical literature showing the link and 164 papers showing no link.
Kirch links the 214 papers back to Midwestern Doctor’s article. That is a list compiled by Ginger Taylor who has a voice in the anti-vax world. She started around 72, and she kept expanding it. This list is a gish gallop of retracted papers, unrelated articles, opinions, and hypotheses.2
The 164 papers showing no link presented by Micheal Simpson (AKA Skeptical Raptor) provide good-quality data.3
But I’m not here to talk about Kirsch again, so let’s return to the Doc.
CHAPTER 2
This is a silly weak argument. You might as well argue that the common cold can cause autism. Immune-activating events, such as maternal infections during pregnancy are associated with an increased risk of developing neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) like autism.
Increased levels can come from Infection, Immunotherapy, Medications, Menopause or andropause, Stress and depression, Smoking, Hyperglycemia, and Physical exercise.
There is no evidence to suggest that inflammation directly causes autism.5
There is a 1 in 1,000,000 risk of encephalitis from the MMR vaccine. Comparatively, the risk of encephalitis from contracting measles is 1 in 1,000.
There is no relevance as Thimerosal is no longer used in childhood vaccines except in the multi-dose version flu shot. Children can receive thimerosal-free alternatives.
Thimerosal is ethylmercury, not methylmercury.
Aluminum can have different effects on mice and humans. Aluminum toxicity in laboratory animals is usually only caused by doses that are much higher than what humans are normally exposed to. Toxicity is determined by dose and the dosage of aluminum salts has a long history of being shown to be safe.6
The evidence linking aluminum exposure to ASD is not strong. Several large-scale studies have failed to find a significant association between aluminum exposure and ASD. Moreover, aluminum has been used in vaccines for decades and there is no evidence that it causes autism.
Some individuals with ASD may have higher levels of aluminum in their brains than typically developing individuals. However, this does not necessarily mean that aluminum causes ASD.
It could be that individuals with ASD are more susceptible to aluminum accumulation in the brain due to underlying genetic or physiological factors.7
Vaccines contain versions of a pathogen that are different than the ones that cause disease. Many vaccines do not contain live pathogens, but rather pieces of pathogens. As such, they do not replicate and, therefore, cannot cause infections or damage to the BBB.8
Since it’s a very long piece to address we’ll stop here for now.
Stay tuned for Part Two.