On Nov 17, 2024, Steve Kirsch released his latest bombshell vaccine-induced autism hit piece”
“Over 300 pages of evidence from the CDC show that vaccines cause autism.
“Recently, I received a treasure trove of documents from a source inside the CDC showing they've known for over 20 years that Wakefield was right: vaccines cause autism.”
There is no evidence that vaccines can cause autism.
But has Kirsch now cracked the nut and presented that evidence?
As usual, Kirsch makes his substack blog posts look as if they are peer-received science papers along with his usual laughable “Executive Summary.”
It’s a bunch of nonsensical word salad - gish gallop filled with retracted papers, number games, misinformation, bad actors, grifters, and anecdotes.
Let’s take a deep dive shall we?
Claim #1
Brian Hooker analyzed the CDC autism study data from the DeStefano paper; the evidence I received confirms what he found
The article he is referring to is:
This “paper” is unpublished. I cannot find any links to a paper with that title, but searches lead to this:
…which is basically the same thing..…and IT IS RETRACTED.
Steve then goes on reciting numbers as if they have any value at all in a garbage paper. They don’t. I will give Steve credit for his number-crunching ability, but when numbers from bad papers are used, they are meaningless. You cannot make 2+2=5 no matter how hard you try. So we can ignore this.
So let’s move on.
Claim #2
“How did the CDC respond to Thompson’s allegations that his boss Coleen Boyle illegally ordered him to destroy the subgroup analysis documents linking the MMR vaccine and autism?”
Kirsch claims his “evidence chest” (whatever the hell that is) shows that all the evidence is consistent with his narrative about being ordered to trash the data they didn’t like.
Umm…NO.
Unlike Brian Hooker’s study, which has been retracted, the original DeStafano study, which Thompson was talking about, has been reanalyzed and found to be sound.
Claim #3
“Pediatric practices where the parents choose not to vaccinate their kids have ZERO autism cases.”
Kirsch claims he knows of a large pediatric practice in California where in 25 years, none of the thousands of kids in the practice (nearly all of whom are not vaccinated at all), haven’t had any cases of autism among the unvaccinated kids.
“Pediatrician Doug Hulstedt did track the case history of all his incoming patients with autism. He has seen over 180 autistic kids in his 35 year career as a pediatrician. He is highly rated by his patients for his medical care.”
Who is Dr. Hulstedt?
Your normal everyday doctor. (not). Then again Steve always aligns with the quacks.
More Steve Kirsch anecdotes without evidence.
We can dismiss this.
Claim #4
“Studies published in the medical literature show odds ratios between 4.2 and 5.0 when comparing fully vaccinated vs. fully unvaccinated kids.”
Really Steve?
Let’s look at those studies
Paul Thomas 2020: Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses Along the Axis of Vaccination
Oops…RETRACTED.
Hooker 2021: Health effects in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, with covariates for breastfeeding status and type of birth
Mawson 2017: Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12-year-old U.S. children
Oops…TWICE RETRACTED.
Updated: Vaccine-autism study retracted — again – Retraction Watch
a: “Competing interests All of the investigators on the present study have been involved in vaccine/biologic litigation.”
Author: David A. Geier - Maryland Malpractice suit:
James Lyons Wieler: Revisiting Excess Diagnoses of Illnesses and Conditions in Children Whose Parents Provided Informed Permission to Vaccinate Them
The claim from Children’s Health Defense:
“New Study Supports Conclusion of Retracted 2020 Study Showing Unvaxxed Kids Healthier Than Vaxxed.”
Nothing more than a re-hashing of already known bad papers. Sorry.
Garner / Control group (2022): Claim: For those with zero exposures to post-birth vaccines, pre-birth vaccines, or the K shot, the total rate of autism in the entire CGS is 0% (0 of 1,024)”
This was nothing more than findings from anonymous online questionnaires completed by 415 mothers of home-schooled children 6-12 years old.
And guess what?
Oops: RETRACTED
Yawn.
Liz Mumper Study: Mumper wrote a guest post for the FLCCC Alliance (a bunch of antivax quacks peddling HCQ and ICM…and profiting from them.)
Allegedly, she reduced the incidence of autism in her practice by 6X limiting the vaccines given to kids.
There is NO supporting evidence to back the claim.
And there is “no such published study.”
She references another Hooker/Miller paper:
Which was trash.
Generation Rescue is a not-for-profit (or for sanity/safety) anti-vaccine organization, run by anti-vaccine nut-for-profit Jenny McCarthy.
Nothing more than an anecdotal phone survey. Not published in any journal.
We can dismiss this as well.
Claim #5
I independently found a very similar odds ratio when I surveyed 10,000 parents: “tell me about your kids” Steve Kirsch
An anecdotal survey of his followers.
Worthless garbage.
Dismissed.
Claim #6
Kirch: “In plain English, you can’t prove that there is no link.”
Steve, you can't prove there IS a link.
Therefore you have no argument.
Claim #7
Kirsch:"The people who claim there is no evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that vaccines cause autism are simply lying to you and the press is just repeating what they’ve heard."
No evidence that they are lying.
Your claim is dismissed.
Claim #8
The good news: anti-vax organization SafeMinds wasted $250K on an attempt to show a link to autism. It backfired.
The bad news: this utterly pointless study resulted in 79 macaques being euthanized.
SafeMinds recently funded research it hoped would prove vaccines cause autism in children. But this effort appears to have backfired for the organization—whose mission is to raise awareness about how certain environmental exposures may be linked to autism—since the study SafeMinds supported showed a link between autism and vaccines does not exist.
https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaxxers-accidentally-fund-study-showing-theres-no-link-between-autism-and-379245
Oops again.
Safe Minds Quote:
“My daughter, who had been completely normal until getting nine vaccines in one day, was suddenly no longer there.” --Terri Poling, RN, JD, mother of Hannah, who received federal compensation for her vaccine-induced autism.
Umm, no. Poling did NOT receive compensation for vaccine-induced autism.
No credibility here.
Sorry Steve, you have not submitted ANYTHING that shows vaccines cause autism. Wakefield was NOT right.
As you can see, his article is nothing more than an antivax dumster-fire. Sadly, we cannot retract a substack article. The best we can do is alert people to the nonsense and hopefully critical minds will win.
Resources:
1. Massive scientific evidence vaccines don’t cause autism
2. Lack of plausibility of vaccines causing autism
3. Overwhelming evidence for the genetic basis of autism
A meta analysis including 1.2 million kids... No link between vaccines and autism, or thimersol and autism.
NUMEROUS STUDIES SHOW VACCINES DON’T CAUSE AUTISM
1 – Madsen et al. (2002) A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism. New England Journal of Medicine.
2 – Institute of Medicine. (2013). Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17226/13164
3 – Institute of Medicine. (2004). Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17226/10997
4 – Institute of Medicine. (2013). Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17226/13563
5 – Fombonne et al. (2006). Pervasive developmental disorders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada: prevalence and links with immunizations. Pediatrics.
6 – Taylor et al. (2014). Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Vaccine.
7 – Ball et al. (2001) An assessment of thimerosal use in childhood vaccines. Pediatrics.
8 – Hviid et al. (2003) Association Between Thimerosal-Containing Vaccine and Autism. JAMA.
9 – Madsen et al. (2003) Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data. Pediatrics.
10 – Stehr-Green et al. (2003) Autism and thimerosal-containing vaccines: lack of consistent evidence for an association. American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
11 – Verstraeten et al. (2003) Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases. Pediatrics.
12 – Andrews et al. (2004). Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a retrospective cohort study in the United Kingdom does not support a causal association. Pediatrics.
13 – Thompson et al. (2007) Early Thimerosal Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes at 7 to 10 Years. New England Journal of Medicine.
14 – McMahon et al. (2008) Inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) in children <2 years of age: examination of selected adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after thimerosal-free or thimerosal-containing vaccine. Vaccine.
15 – Schechter and Grether. (2008) Continuing increases in autism reported to California’s developmental services system: mercury in retrograde. Archives of General Psychiatry.
16 – DeStefano F. (2009) Thimerosal-containing vaccines: evidence versus public apprehension. Expert Opinion on Drug Safety.
17 – Tozzi et al. (2009) Neuropsychological performance 10 years after immunization in infancy with thimerosal-containing vaccines. Pediatrics.
18 – Price et al. (2010) Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism. Pediatrics.
19 – Barile et al. (2012) Thimerosal exposure in early life and neuropsychological outcomes 7-10 years later. Journal of Pediatric Psychology.
20 – DeStefano et al. (2013). Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism. Journal of Pediatrics.
21 – Uno et al. (2012). The combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: the first case-control study in Asia.
Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism
Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study
Another study shows that autism is mainly genetic. Antivaxers go crazy.
Oh wait…Steve Kirsch has ANECDOTES and retractions.
I guess I must be wrong.
…..Nah.
A Mind Less Wasted is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider subscribing.