I’ve hesitated broaching this subject for quite a while now, because people are already so convinced on this topic that it’s almost impossible to carry on a decent conversation. Plus, although autism is a huge problem the world over, I think it’s extremely easy to disqualify vaccines as “safe” on multiple other reactions and issues with the program and the science propping it up, without ever once mentioning the A word. But as time goes on, I grow bolder and more willing to humble myself to speak on things others would rather ignore. You can (as always) take it or leave it, but expressing what I’ve learned as thoroughly as I can is always a relief to me.

The propaganda has been extremely effective when it comes to the subject of autism and vaccines. The articles discussing the topic are uniform and predictable. The more I have read the mainstream perspective, the more apparent the blueprint has become. Until now, I can recite it almost verbatim. There are bullet points, y’all. Talking points. Most of them go like this…

*assumes reporter voice* “The reason people question whether vaccines cause autism is because in the late 90’s, Andrew Wakefield did a fraudulent study that maliciously and intentionally tried to prove the MMR causes autism. That study has been debunked and he is such a horrible doctor that his license was revoked and it’s all been disproved over and over since then. Study after study has since proved that vaccines don’t cause autism, and people should stop saying that they do. This has been thoroughly debunked.”

And that’s that. They might throw in a reference or two to Jenny McCarthy and make sure to mention her Playboy model past to discredit her as much as possible. 😛

There’s usually at least some screaming about measles having been eradicated but it now coming back because people aren’t vaccinating their children enough. Then they round it up with that Danish study from March of 2019 [1] as an example of how thoroughly this has been studied. I mean, look at the amount of children in that study! How can one question this topic after a study like that?

Sometimes they try to pin autism on genetics because the rise in numbers is uncomfortable, and just leaving it up in the air, with no cause whatsoever (just not caused by vaccines, on that we can be sure), feels wrong, so they throw us a hopeful bone.

I’m not going to say very much about Wakefield other than two things:

1. If you haven’t heard both sides of the story, you end up sounding ignorant and robotic as you repeat the tired, oft repeated lines from mainstream media.
2. If you take the time to read the paper itself, you will see that at least half of the claims the media repeats are outright lies. The conclusion of his paper says this: “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.” [2]

How innocent is that conclusion? “We did not prove an association…” That’s not even correlation. They mention it in passing because it was part of the observations made by parents. They were not trying to prove anything even close to the MMR and autism. This was a case study and when you do case studies, it is scientifically and morally imperative that you include every single detail. They were mostly studying the link between bowel disease and children who have autism. That link has since been proved over and over. Indeed, parents are managing their children’s autism through diet the world over. Jenny McCarthy is one of those parents. If you want a deeper look into his side of the story, you could start by reading the paper itself, or hear his side of the tale by purchasing his book titled Callous Disregard or simply listen to this interview. It can’t hurt to look into both sides, can it?

What’s funny to me is that everyone knows the story of Andrew Wakefield (as it’s been copied and pasted millions of times on pretty much every news source and any time the vaccine topic comes up at all), but obviously no one has taken the time to read the study. Why wouldn’t you start there? Not even journalists have taken the time to glance at it. It truly is a shame, because the whole story kind of stops there. In reading their findings, you realize it’s simply a case study and these doctors were sharing every single finding, being as thorough as any scientist with integrity should be.

It’s also untrue that the complaints to do with autism and vaccines started in regards to the MMR and Wakefield. The DTP (old vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) had so many complaints against it (including autism) that it was the impetus behind pharmaceutical companies going to the President and demanding that liability be removed from vaccines so that they could actually make money on them again. That happened in 1986. We now use the DTaP, which is said to be less dangerous.

This subject is where I kind of “fell down the rabbit hole” so to speak. When I first started learning about vaccines, I did not believe they were in any way linked to autism. I cringed whenever people would harp on them being connected, and wished the vaccine skeptics wouldn’t dwell on it at all because the evidence that vaccines are unsafe is so overwhelming without ever mentioning autism. So at the very beginning, when I was first learning about this topic, I figured autism would be a great way to start. I could prove that at least here, we have ample evidence to exonerate vaccines, and who knows, I could possibly escape turning into an “antivaxxer” after all.

I reached out to my most vocal pro-vaxx friend, who also happens to be a nurse, and asked for proof that vaccines don’t cause autism. She sent me this link and mentioned that Autism Speaks actually links it as their proof that vaccines are not involved. It’s a compilation of studies that prove vaccines are safe and do not cause autism.

So I sat down one night, and started reading the studies, immediately confident because there’s quite a long list at first glance. I did keep an eye out for the fallacies I had been learning about, and it quickly becomes apparent that there are no vaccinated versus unvaccinated studies. And then it became clear that the MMR is the only vaccine that has been studied for its relation to autism. There are some studies exonerating thimerosal. One looking at antigens. But that’s it. I don’t know if you realize, but there are a lot of vaccines, and not seeing any of the others listed in this large group of studies that proved “vaccines do not cause autism” was just mind blowing to me. One vaccine (out of 16), and one ingredient (out of 80-100)…that’s all we’ve looked at. And of those studies, we never have an actual control group. There’s never a completely unvaccinated cohort to measure against. Can we honestly say that a study designed to look at vaccinated versus vaccinated minus one vaccine will show us anything? Isn’t that like comparing one pack of cigarettes per day versus a few less per day and then concluding one pack a day doesn’t cause cancer because smoking 3/4 of a pack a day has almost the same outcome?

C’mon man…

I came away with such a baffled feeling of betrayal. Even then, not knowing what I know now (that one of those studies is the William Thompson study–more on that later) and then I asked, “That’s it!? That’s all they’ve got!??” Because here’s the thing, even if those studies are perfect, even if you prove without a shadow of a doubt that those two elements (the MMR and thimerosal) are guilt-free, how does that translate to “Vaccines don’t cause autism?” How is that in any way ethical or honest? That’s like checking the tail of a plane and when it later goes down in a burst of flame, denying that anything could have gone wrong, because planes can’t crash if you’ve cursorily checked that tail tip. Okay…bad analogy, but y’all get it right?

And then I went to the CDC website (please go look at this page for yourself, you’ll see the proof they list, even at a glance, you’ll see that I’m not lying) and there’s this big, bold title that states, “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism”, and the first link of proof for this outrageous claim is the Institute of Medicine Study Report from 2011. [6] So I followed that link, and if you go to the “read PDF online option” in the top right corner, you can page to the index and under autism, the conclusion reached is this, “Conclusion 10.6: The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between diphtheria toxoid–, tetanus toxoid–, or acellular pertussis–containing vaccine and autism.” [7]

I ask you this. How does the statement above translate to “vaccines do not cause autism?” I really encourage you to page through that document. It’s long, I’ll give you that (you can buy the hardcover book for $90 hehe), but the sheer amount of syndromes and adverse effects linked to each vaccine they were looking at and the amount of conclusions that end with “the evidence is inadequate, lacking, insufficient, absent…” is quite eye opening. “We just don’t know” seems to be a foolproof response to any amount of correlation they don’t want to deal with. If the CDC asks the IOM to look into these adverse events reported so often after these vaccines, and the IOM’s conclusion is always, “no one is doing any studies, so we have no idea,” how is that proof of safety? I’ll tell you how. This seems to be the general consensus in the scientific world when it comes to vaccines: “If we don’t do any studies to prove vaccines are at fault, we can keep saying they’re not at fault.”

The CDC has since been requested (through FOIA requests and a lawsuit) to produce all proof that the 8 vaccines given in the first 6 months of life do not cause autism. They didn’t have a single study to exonerate these 8 vaccines, which include the hepatitis b, influenza, HIB, rotavirus, hepatitis A, pneumonia, DTaP and polio vaccines. [8]

I don’t want to get too deep into the William Thompson case, but just to shortly gloss over: There is a whistleblower scientist at the CDC claiming the CDC is “paralyzed” when it comes to autism. That they are “10 years behind the science”, and that they are literally committing fraud when it comes to at least one study concerning the MMR and the extremely high risk of autism, especially with black boys. William Thompson still works at the CDC. He is protected under whistleblower status, and congress has been begged, implored and entreated to subpoena this man and look into his claims, do an investigation to see if what he says is true. Look over the documents he has saved from the trash bin the others made a campfire of. So far, they have done no investigation and all is quiet. Ignoring these types of thing seems to be the general rule of thumb. Maybe because attacking and ruining Andy Wakefield’s career wasn’t as successful as simply turning a blind eye and hoping it goes away has done. It definitely seems to be the new, agreed upon path the authorities have chosen.

You can learn of the entire story of William Thompson and the fraud committed by the CDC here. It’s probably the most censored documentary of all time. And just a little food for thought: the allegations made in this documentary are straight up fraud, deception, and lies. These accusations are leveled at the government agency chosen to protect our children. This is serious and real and if it were a lie, it would be grounds for slander, libel, or both, and a severe punishment would be in store under court of law for spreading this type of “misinformation.” Just saying. If this were indeed misinformation, the government would win this law suit and I would assume it would be quite simple and easy to clear their name and forever silence the little nonprofit organization that continues to be a thorn in their side. Instead of suing, they have chosen censorship instead (which often backfires), and have not exonerated themselves in any way via the media. It’s interesting that they choose such an ineffectual method if they are truly innocent…

So there you have it, I think I have faithfully produced the evidence (and some of the problems with that evidence) that the CDC points to when attempting to exonerate the vaccine program for any role in the autism epidemic. As far as I can tell, this is enough for most people…but this is really all they’ve got.

What would it take to convince you that vaccines DO cause autism? Is science enough? Are thousands of parents telling their stories enough? Will it take these health agencies admitting it in black and white? Because although that would be nice, is that a realistic qualification? We got cigarette companies to admit their products cause cancer, but the government forced them to do that (and that didn’t happen till over 30 years of battle). Cigarettes were promoted as healthy, but the government never tried to coerce anyone into smoking them. They weren’t mandating them or claiming they eradicated disease. So I think that hope is naïve. It’s really not going to happen. They’ve been pushing these vaccines for decades. I think there is more than substantial proof that vaccines play a role, and I believe that evidence is already documented. But the science itself is no match for religious belief and accepted propaganda, and expecting big agencies to admit they were wrong is impossible, as far as I know. When is the last time that has happened? Even when the evidence is ample and clear?

But let’s look at some science anyway, shall we?

This study shows a 3 times higher risk for autism when vaccinated at birth with the hepatitis b vaccine versus being unvaccinated or waiting to vaccinate until 2 months old. [9]

Did you read it? The abstract is all there is and it’s very short, don’t worry. Let’s contrast the following quote with the Wakefield study above, “Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life. Non-Hispanic white boys were 64% less likely to have autism diagnosis relative to nonwhite boys. Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.”

This actually approaches correlation. I don’t think they’re pointing to causation yet, but this is extremely strong statistical evidence and language compared to Wakefield’s study. The outcome of his study was the loss of his reputation and career. This study is ignored on every front as far as I know. Raise your hand if you knew about it and weren’t already a part of the antivaxx community.

This study looks at the influenza vaccine in pregnancy and its link to autism. Here is the conclusion:
“In trimester-specific analyses, first-trimester influenza vaccination was the only period associated with increased ASD risk (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.04-1.39). However, this association could be due to chance (P = 0.1) if Bonferroni corrected for the multiplicity of hypotheses tested (n = 8). Maternal influenza vaccination in the second or third trimester was not associated with increased ASD risk.” [10]

I love the “could be due to chance” line. Scientists are never more careful than when the data they publish accidentally makes vaccines look bad. 🙂

Here’s a study that showed marked improvement when ASD children were injected with their own cord blood. [11] Unequivocally, once and for all, debunking the myth that autism is genetic. Your own stem cells can’t heal you if your condition is genetic, see.

Also, genetics do not literally explode across an entire population in the space of one generation. All you have to do (if you’re older than 30) is think back to your childhood. How many of your peers had autism? One? Maybe two? And now, how many children do you know who are on the spectrum? How many do you see as you walk through Walmart or down the street? Children in helmets who are barely above functioning? Stimming in public? Inability to interact with other children?

Autism was one in 10,000 in the 70’s. [12] It is now 1 in 32 [13] (New Jersey has the most accurate method of counting new autism cases).

If it’s due to better diagnosis, we would have had a plateau after 1996 when they added Asperger’s to the spectrum. If it were due to genetics, it wouldn’t be an actual explosion (I’m not exaggerating, look at the graph!) If it’s just “neurodiversity”, 70% of ASD diagnoses wouldn’t be incapable of having a normal life (getting married, getting a job, living independently, etc). TV shows like The Good Doctor are fun to watch and all, but that’s not the actual face of autism. That’s a very few lucky ones. There are so many who live behind closed doors, banging their heads on walls, wearing diapers, in need of constant supervision.

If you would like a closer look at the history, prevalence, and backstory of autism, I recommend the book Denial by Mark Blaxill.

Both of these studies should be titled “Andrew Wakefield was right.” [14, 15]

There is growing evidence that infections in pregnant women can cause an autism diagnosis for the child later on. These infections do not have a direct effect on the baby. This isn’t rubella causing birth defects. It’s the inflammatory response, not the virus itself that causes these problems. Is it truly a leap to posit that vaccines could have the same effect? What is the GOAL of vaccines? A system wide inflammatory response great enough to produce antibodies. “Fever” is the number one expected side effect. Could it be that getting a vaccine at exactly the wrong moment in fetal development could produce the same effects as an infection at exactly the wrong moment?

Even early childhood seems to have the same weakness with infections. This study looks at the association between inflammatory infections early in life and mental disorder diagnosis later. There was an 84% increase risk if you required hospitalization, and a 40% increased risk if the infection was less severe and treated outpatient with anti-infective agents. It’s even worse if you need antibiotics. [16]

So if maternal immune activation is one of the causes of autism, [17] is it not logical that even vaccines given in pregnancy could play a role? And again, the flu shot and TDaP have not been studied for a link with autism.

Did you know that autism is an inflammatory disease? [18] That the autistic brain itself is constantly inflamed? [19]

Did you further know that aluminum in vaccines is an adjuvant with the role of causing immune activation and ongoing inflammation? Indeed, inactivated vaccines contain so little of the dead virus that the immune response is almost nonexistent without the aluminum.

Babies following the CDC recommended schedule will receive close to 5,000 mcg of aluminum injected into them by the time they’re 18 months old. [20, 21]

The CDC relies upon zero studies looking at injected aluminum in the body. Instead, they rely upon one study looking at ingested aluminum. [22]

A study published in 2012 shows that brain inflammation caused by high levels of interleukin 6 result in autistic activity in rats. [23]

So what causes high levels of interleukin 6? Turns out, if you give rats aluminum, it results in increased IL-6 in the brain 4-fold. The aluminum impaired learning and memory and caused numerous behavioral changes. The aluminum also increased many other indicators of inflammation and brain degeneration. [24]

The hepatitis B vaccine, which contains 250 mcg of aluminum, also increases IL-6 in the brains of human babies. [25]

So to tie it all together, the question becomes, does the injected aluminum get through the blood brain barrier and into the brain? Especially the autistic brain? The answer is yes. This study shows the highest levels of aluminum ever found in brain tissue, found in autistic brains: [26]

If you want a step by step puzzle of how injected aluminum plays a role in causing autism, please read this extremely well cited blog post by JB Handley. [27] Or read his book How to End the Autism Epidemic. (Him and Mark Blaxill are both autism dads who are extremely intelligent, well educated, and have been driven to find answers because of their children’s tragic stories.)

Add to this the thousands of stories from parents talking about their perfectly healthy, normal babies going in for a round of vaccines and within days or weeks, losing all speech, all eye contact, and ending up with an autism diagnosis later.

Then there is the Hannah Poling case, and the way they actually manipulated things to kick autism out of vaccine court right after the Hannah Poling case.

And then there’s Dr Zimmerman, the same doctor relied upon by the DOJ as an expert witness in testifying against people in vaccine court coming out with an affidavit describing how the DOJ lawyers committed fraud in applying his one statement (to the negative in vaccines causing autism of course) to multiple cases instead of consulting him on each case individually and he also states clearly that vaccines can and do cause autism and gives a mechanism of action. [28] (he’s been fired as an expert witness now haha)

So there it is. I’ve read Dr. Hotez’s book, I’ve read the (very weak) papers and studies supposedly proving that vaccines don’t cause autism, I’ve read the science cited by the CDC, I’ve listened to the media deny and deny, pointing to “mountains of evidence” that quickly dwindle into a little ant hill once you pull out the magnifying glass, and I’ve come to a conclusion. The science battle is already lost. The internet should be broken in half at the overwhelming proof that vaccines warrant a closer look, at the very least. It should be further broken in half that governmental agencies are allowed to blatantly lie to the public with statements like “Vaccines do not cause autism” when they simply do not have the data to back that statement up.

I’m not saying vaccines are the sole cause. Just one of the things we should be looking at. Autism is caused by environmental factors, there’s literally no other conclusion to come to if you actually look at the evidence. This is only a fraction of it, but I think it’s a start to show that this question has certainly not been answered to any kind of satisfaction. And yet, here we are. Our default position (at least mine was, and I don’t even listen to the media on a regular basis) is to completely reject this evidence without knowing any of the particulars. This isn’t a battle of science. That much is clear. It’s a battle of beliefs…of religion.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30831578/
2. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673697110960/fulltext
3. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvMzYyMDYwNi9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk/episode/NWE2ZDhjZGM3OWY0NGY2YTljMTgwNDg2ODE0NGI2MTU?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjgkqyT4uLuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBA
4. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/immunizations/Pages/Vaccine-Studies-Examine-the-Evidence.aspx
5. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html
6. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13164/adverse-effects-of-vaccines-evidence-and-causality
7. https://www.nap.edu/read/13164/chapter/1
8. https://www.icandecide.org/ican_lawsuits/stipulated-order-proving-cdc-has-no-studies-to-support-claim-that-vaccines-given-in-first-6-months-of-life-do-not-cause-autism/
9. https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/hepatitis-b-vaccination-of-male-neonates-and-autism-diagnosis-nhi
10. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27893896/
11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28378499/
12. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/suffer-the-children/201810/the-rising-rate-autism-in-kids
13. https://www.autismnj.org/understanding-autism/prevalence-rates/
14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12608733
15. https://health.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/12807
16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30516814/
17. https://web.archive.org/web/20170421014045/http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~phplab/images/whatwedo/EngSci31006.pdf
18. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ana.20315
19. http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1393597
20. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html
21. https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum
22. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22001122/
23. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925443912000233
24. http://vaccinepapers.org/wp-content/uploads/Neuroprotective-Effect-of-Nanodiamond-in-Alzheimers-Disease-Rat-Model.pdf
25. http://vaccinepapers.org/two-vaccines-opposite-effects-brain/
26. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29413113
27. https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2018/4/1/international2018
28. https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/zimmerman-affidavit.pdf