TIME Magazine: There is NO HOPE when it comes to autism

Autism: No known cause, prevention or cure

Catherine Tan, a medical sociologist writing for TIME Magazine, dismissed a link between vaccines and autism as an “imaginary relationship,” and she warned about having Robert Kennedy, Jr. as head of HHS.

Tan isn’t worried about the autism rate. She attributed the never-ending increases to shutting down institutions, greater awareness and an expanded definition of the disorder.

Tan implied that children are born autistic.

Furthermore she said a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study to determine if unvaccinated children have the same rate of autism as vaccinated children would be “unethical.”

(Tan pretended that the research would involve leaving a group of children unvaccinated to see the results, while ignoring the fact that with so many parents now too scared or too well-informed to vaccinate, the study group is already out there.)

Tan acknowledged that parents are worried about the future for their autistic children as adults. She thinks Kennedy should work on that problem and forget about the claim of a link to vaccines.

(I’d like to ask Tan why young autistic adults can’t go where autistic adults have always gone. Please show us the three percent of 40, 60 and 80 year olds with autism that she believes are here right now.)

In the December 20^th article, Why People Believe Trump and RFK Jr.’s Dangerous and Debunked Claims about Vaccines and Autism, Tan said that believing in a link between vaccines and autism gives parents hope, but it’s a false hope.

Parents have to just accept the fact that when it comes to autism, there is no hope.

Tan writes:

In a recent interview with NBC, President-elect Donald Trump suggested that his nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will investigate the relationship between early childhood vaccines and autism. Kennedy has a long history of blaming vaccines for autism. . . .

These unfounded attacks on vaccines pose serious threats to public health, risking the spread of preventable diseases and misinformation. Medical scientists have made it clear: vaccines save lives and do not cause autism. Yet, many Americans share Kennedy’s skepticism and question the importance of early childhood vaccines. For instance, a 2024 survey by Gallup suggests that the share of Americans who consider childhood vaccines to be “extremely important” has declined from 58% in 2019 to just 40%. The same survey found that 13% of Americans believe vaccines can cause autism, up from 6% in 2015, and roughly half of Americans are unsure if vaccines cause autism. Just 36% understand that vaccines do not cause autism.

So why does this myth persist? The reason isn’t because people are uninformed or want children to get sick. It is because for many, the idea of a vaccine-autism link gives them hope.

A cause for autism implies a cure for autism

As a medical sociologist, I spent three years studying parents of autistic children, practitioners, and researchers who are convinced that early childhood vaccines cause autism.

No such thing as regressive autism

Like Kennedy, they believe that children are born non-autistic and then made autistic by vaccines and other environmental triggers.

This belief tragically portrays autistic people as having been born "typical" but then "broken." Although debunked, this causal theory is incredibly appealing to families because it suggests that autism can be reversed with alternative and experimental treatments that address vaccine "injury." Believing in a vaccine-autism link, parents access an ever-expanding market of questionable products that claim to mitigate autistic symptoms—specialized diets, supplements, and riskier treatments, like chelation and parasite therapy. For these consumers, the hope of autism “recovery” depends on vaccines causing autism.

The reality is, autism is not something that can be cured and researchers do not know the precise cause. In this context of multiple unknowns, the increasing prevalence of autism evokes urgency and fear—feelings Trump has historically capitalized on.

No real increase in autism

In a recent interview with TIME, Trump expressed concerns about a rise in diagnosed cases of autism. “The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible,” he said. “If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it.” . . .

Trump’s numbers here are inaccurate. In 2000, autism impacted an estimated 1 in 150 children in the United States; today, it is 1 in 36 children. This steep increase can be largely attributed to the closure of residential institutions which many people with autism were once sent to, greater public awareness about autism, and expansion of the diagnostic criteria. In other words, measuring the true rise of autism is complicated and not based on biology alone. A vaccine-autism link is attractive because it would simplify the challenge at hand.

Autism can’t be prevented

If vaccines cause autism, then we would have a prevention strategy and new directions for treatment research—but vaccines do not cause autism. Continued research into this imaginary relationship would be wasteful and is not likely to satisfy vaccine skeptics.

Vaxxed/unvaxxed study “unethical”

Moreover, the randomized, double blind control trials that vaccine skeptics have demanded are unethical because they would require child participants to “receive less than the recommended immunization schedule.” This would put them at risk of contracting vaccine-preventable diseases. Humoring conspiracy theorists serves to distract from the fundamental problem: we live in a country that makes being disabled dangerous.

Desperate parents

The challenges autistic people face

When talking to parents of autistic kids, mothers often tell me that one of their greatest fears is dying because who will care for their autistic child after they are gone?

. . .The point is: our political priorities are broken, not autistic people. And it is difficult to fix our political priorities.

The vaccine-autism link is more than a myth—it is a wish. For some parents of autistic children, a vaccine-autism relationship is tantalizing because it nurtures the hope of recovering from autism. These parents recognize that the U.S. is not going to make space for disabled people. In their calculation, their chances of reversing vaccine injury with unsupported, experimental treatments are better than convincing policy makers to care for disabled people. We don’t need to squander resources studying a phenomenon that does not exist. If Trump and Kennedy actually cared about autism, then they would be asking how our policies can promote the inclusion and safety of disabled people.

Catherine Tan’s message of hopelessness is clear proof that the corporate media will never honestly cover this controversy.

Unanswered questions

How would Tan explain the one third of autistic children who start out as normally developing, then lose learned skills and end up on the autism spectrum?

What about Hannah Poling, whose claim of vaccine-induced autism was conceded by the federal government in 2008?

What about the 80+ cases of vaccine injury resulting in autism that have been compensated by the secretive “vaccine court” run by the U.S. Federal of Court of Claims?

In California, the autism rate is one in every 22 children, one in every 14 boys. Should we expect this will soon be the national rate? When will the increases stop?

After two decades of promoting Big Pharma’s position of no link between vaccines and autism, the media’s only recourse is to continue the BIG LIES ABOUT AUTISM:

Kids are born autistic. Whatever the latest rate, it’s always been that high. Adults have the same rate of autism as children.

AND the most important claim of all: THERE IS NO LINK TO VACCINES.

All those who’ve covered up the truth about autism—the pharmaceutical industry, health officials, medical organizations, AND the media—are panicking right now at the prospect that Robert Kennedy will reveal the truth about vaccines and autism.

YOUR THOUGHTS?