Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response

“Autistic people are constantly accommodating to a world that refuses to accommodate to them” truer words have never been said

Anti-vaxxers: "Do your own research!" The research:

"Save the children" MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, would you rather have a kid who likes trains or a kid that died because of measles

Shout out to when HBomb says "I want Brian Deer to be able to track this video coming out on a graph of his book sales" and then in his plagerism video it turns out there was a rather impressive uptick in the book sales after this video came out. Sometimes dreams do come true.

Wow that Brian Deer documentary sure sounds great, I just wish there was a worse summarized version of it with more factual errors

As someone with autism I vaccinate regularly to increase my power.

I learned that correlation ≠ causation in high school. It alarms me that grown adults haven’t learned that yet

something about a respected scientist calling him "a wanker and a fraud" just tickles me right

I love how Wakefield’s new boss was like “You know, Andy, you’re right! This does warrant more looking into! Let’s fund a giant study to check your work!” That’s a real power move

When we got our COVID shots, in school, the three of us, we were sitting there for the required fifteen minutes. We sat there in silence. Suddenly one of us, not me, my friend, turns to me with this shit eating grin on his face. The two of us turn to him. We stare at each other. Still grinning, he says "I can feel my autism getting stronger" and the three of us lose our minds laughing. We are all diagnosed. Life is, if not good, at least okay

I grew up very Christian and was told that my autism was caused by my parent's sins. For whatever reason, I deserve to be punished for things my parents did. And being told by everyone around me that I am a punishment for my parents was definitely very good for my mental health.

what im getting out of the antivax movement is that some parents would rather risk having a dead child than an autistic one :/

Watching this video 2+ years later and the best joke in the piece being the final line: "I will never put this much effort into researching a video ever again..."

I was born with autism, but I make sure to get all my shots to make sure I'm always running the latest version.

A friend of mine - born in eastern Europe in the 90s - did not receive a polio vaccine and they did get infected as a toddler. They now use leg braces and sometimes a wheelchair for mobility. They always say, "Everyone thinks it's gone, but I'm one of the unlucky few." It's a very real reminder, for me, that vaccines have an impressive success rate in improving the lives of people everywhere.

“This is not how a healthy society discusses its people” — this is such a profound yet simple observation. well done mate

The fact that people forgot how bad measles is and decided that autism was somehow the scarier option really speaks to how effective the measles vaccine has been

The part about child abuse is actually sickening. Wakefield shouldn't have just lost his medical license. He should be in jail for assault and child abuse.

“The only problem, is that it was not approved by the ethics board, but that doesn’t make it unethical!” Umm, YES! YES IT DOES! THAT’S THE ENTIRE POINT OF AN ETHICS BOARD!

My grandma and I used to be very close, she also used to be an anti-vaxer. For as long I could remember shes been into some spiritual woo-woo stuff, and all the 'alternative medicine' things that comes with it. Some of it even helped me (it might have been a placebo effect, but I was an anxious kid, who had a lot of trouble falling asleep and whatever sleep tonic bs it was she gave me helped) and I'm thankful for that. But around the time my younger cousins were born, she got cought up in the whole anti-vax thing. When my 1st cousin was born she initially refused to get the jab (i cant remember what exactly it was for) and so my aunt and uncle said "okay, then you can't see your grandson". That got her ass in gear and she got all the nessecary vaccines. This by no means made her re-think her opinions on vaccines but she knew the family didn't appreciate her views on that, so she would bring it up, atleast not often. I remember meeting one of my grandmas friends once, she was nice, she had two kids, one girl and one boy. This boy had been diagnosed with autism, his parents couldn't afford to give him the help and accomodations he needed. This resulted in almost daily meltdowns, he also had a few other diagnoses for things like excma and a severe gluten intolerance that contributed to the severity of these meltdowns and his sensory issues. Looking back now, althought her autism presented as less 'severe' or she may have been 'higher functioning', I think the girl may have been autistic too, however she had no official diagnosis, which might be becuase many AFAB people with autism and/or adhd can present differently than has been traditionally studed and recorded in AMAB people, but we know that there is a genetic link in many neurodiverse conditions. The previous paragraph isnt just me rambling I think its important backstory/context. Fast forward to late 2021, we live in Australia, Victoria. Back in 2020 and 2021 my state was pretty well known for our many numerous and 'harsh' lockdowns, we'd recently just gotten out of lockdown so me, my mums and my Grandma decided to get lunch together to catch up. Everything was going well, we were wrapping up and the conversation got political. Normaly this would be fine, most of our political views tend to line up and what doesn't usually isn't that big of a deal. But then as we're standing in the car park (it was a pretty rural place with very little traffic so we were perfectly safe) preparing to say our goodbyes, my Nana brings up vaccines. She starts talking about how they cause autism, how she's heard friends and friends of friends talk about how autism ripped their childeren away from them, about how these childeren who had apparently been very outgoing and talkative had suddenly, after recieveing their vaccines, become non verbal, aggressive and withdrawn. About how, autism, quote, "turned their childeren into monsters". I'd seen this youtube video for the first time not long before, so I tired to reason and argue with her using a lot of the evidence and counter-arguements presented here, and I tried be calm, tried to be understanding and patient. But she kept refusing to budge, kept talking about all these 2nd, 3rd or who knows how many hand accounts of anti-vax parents with autistic kids. And the way she talked about these kids. Fuck. Here is this woman, who I've known my whole life to be nothing but kind and compassionate to everyone in her life, who was one of the first people to notice how my ex-step mum treated and talked to me and realise it was abuse. Here she is, talking about these children like they were less than a rabid dog. I knew she wasn't perfect, I knew she had her problems, I knew she was raised during a 'different time'. But to hear my grandma talk about these innocent childeren like that broke my heart. A few months before this argument I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. And by no means am I saying that I have any real understanding of what its like to have autisim. There is a large overlap of symptoms and traits and how they can present between ADHD and Autism, so much so that it is commom for people with autism to be misdiagnosed as having ADHD or for people to even have both. And so, to hear my Nana talk about these kids that I have so much in common with in such a dehumanizing way? it felt like she was talking about me. I know now, that after a certain threshold the anti-vax movement isnt about skeptisism in the government and the medical industry. It's about fear. Not for their childeren as they may lead you to believe, but of them. of this diagnosis that they dont understand, of how their child is different. In the generations before vaccines they'd have called their childeren changelings, Things that were not their childeren, that had taken their place. By the end of the argument I was crying in frustration despreatly trying to make my nan understand that these childerens autism doesnt make them any less deserving of love, it doesn't mean that we shoud be banning vaccines, it just means that we need to adapt and be more prepared to make the nessecary accomodations for these kids. But no matter what I'd say she just couldn't get it. I walked off and got into my mums car. This whole time my mums had been trying to de-escalate the situation and i think they were just in shock by the end of it. They said their goodbyes. see you soon, love yous, etc. I got out of the car for a little bit to give my nana a hug and say goodbye but that was it. I spent almost the whole car ride home crying. Fast forward again to the begining of this year, I'm spending time with my nana and she brings up autism, i'm imediatly prepared to go on the defensive but as she keeps talking i realise, her opinions have changed. she's reassesed her views and done more research, she's talking about poeple with autism like theyre PEOPLE. She's even talking about how she can see it in some of our family members about how SHE might be autistic. I wanted to write this so that anyone else seeing this who has or had relatives or loved ones that were/are antivax that there is hope, it can get better. And I really hope it does for you. I also wanted to write this to show how much this youtube video means to me. That a whole new generation of people are learning about anti-vaxxers and how to deal with them. This video is honestly an educational resource, I think that this video and others like it are important and for them to be here, for free, easy for anyone to access is so insanely important that i dont even have to words left to finish this monolith of a comment in a satisfying way. All I can think of thats left to say is, Thank you hbomberguy for making this video.