[Zagadka]

Anti-Vaccine Activist Says Trump Asked Him to Head Commission on Vaccine Safety

After meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told reporters that Trump has asked him to "chair a commission on vaccination safety and scientific integrity" and that he has accepted.

Both Trump and Kennedy have spread fringe theories linking vaccines to autism in children, an idea that medical experts overwhelmingly reject and have warned is endangering public health by discouraging parents from immunizing their kids.

"President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policies and he has questions about it," Kennedy told the press. "He says his opinion doesn't matter ... but the science does matter, and we ought to be reading the science and we ought to be debating the science."

Kennedy drew fire last year for describing a "holocaust" of children allegedly hurt by immunization at a screening of a film on the topic (he later apologized for the term).

Trump tweeted several times in 2014 that the use of multiple vaccinations caused autism, claiming at one point "the doctors lied." Doctors and researchers who specialize in infectious diseases expressed concern after Trump and other candidates promoted the theory in a Republican debate in September 2015.

"Just the other day, two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic," Trump said at the time.

He offered no details or evidence on the case. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement after the debate calling his comments "dangerous to public health" and reaffirming that his claim had been "disproven by a robust body of medical literature."

Autism Speaks, an organization that advocates for individuals with autism, released a statement to NBC News after Trump's meeting with Kennedy, reiterating its conclusion that vaccines were unrelated to the condition.

"Over the last two decades, extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism," the statement said. "The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism."

Doctors trace the popular fear to a debunked 1998 study in the British medical journal Lancet that the publication later retracted after discovering its lead author was involved in a lawsuit against drug companies and used flawed methods.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that there is no link between autism and vaccines, citing numerous subsequent studies. An Immunization Safety Commission organized by the Institute of Medicine examined the issue and reached the same conclusion in multiple reports.

But the theory persists, aided in part by celebrity advocates. Experts have warned that this small but vocal group of doubters is helping fuel outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough in communities where parents decline to vaccinate their children.

Marie McCormick, a Harvard professor of maternal and child health who chaired the Immunization Safety Commission, expressed concern that Trump and Kennedy might lend a presidential seal to misinformation.

"If the committee comes out saying there is an [autism] association, there will be people who avoid vaccines," McCormick told NBC News. "There have been actual deaths attributed to lower immunization rates."

Trump has generally been skeptical of scientific expertise, however. He has repeatedly claimed the overwhelming body of research linking climate change to human activities is a hoax.

He is one of several politicians to draw rebukes from medical experts in recent years for entertaining vaccination and autism links. Former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann claimed an HPV vaccine caused a child to become "retarded" after a Republican debate in 2011. More recently, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), an ophthalmologist, and Dr. Ben Carson, a surgeon, also raised concerns that too many vaccines pose a danger.

In 2008, then-candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain indicated to activists concerned about the issue that they supported research into the matter. Obama and Clinton later said that the science was settled and urged families to vaccinate their children.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-meets-anti-vaccine-activist-after-raising-fringe-theory-trail-n705296

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

This is the darkest timeline.

I can't wait to see how the Trumpists on the forum are going to defend this. Fake news? Media bias? Maybe by actually coming out as anti-vaxxors (blackjack21)?

[One Degree]

This is the darkest timeline.

I can't wait to see how the Trumpists on the forum are going to defend this. Fake news? Media bias? Maybe by actually coming out as anti-vaxxors (blackjack21)?

There are two sides to the vaccine story like all stories. I remember a very long debate on POFO about it. I would not want to reenter that debate, but I think you would be surprised by the about of evidence for both sides.

[Suntzu]

RFK, Jr. is an expert on needles being a heroin junkie.

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

There are two sides to the vaccine story like all stories. I remember a very long debate on POFO about it. I would not want to reenter that debate, but I think you would be surprised by the about of evidence for both sides.

I don't think there is good evidence on the anti-Vaxxor side. But I'm always open to new ideas.

[One Degree]

I don't think there is good evidence on the anti-Vaxxor side. But I'm always open to new ideas.

It is not something that can be responded to in a post. The debate wore me out and I don't want to do it again. I would refer you to the appropriate thread, but I lack the skills to know how to find it. Maybe one of the more skillful members could point you to it, if you are interested in the countless details.

Edit: I remember a lot of the discussion may have been about measles, but I don't recall if that was the name of the thread.

Edit 2: @LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX I am sorry, My faulty memory took awhile to catch up. The debate I mentioned was about mandatory vaccination which is a whole different argument.

[MistyTiger]

Geez, talk about backwards. I am one of those people that believe that epidemics come back because more and more people refuse to have their children vaccinated.

I was vaccinated as a child, so why don't I have autism?

Anyway, I think that professional politicians should leave the medical talk to the medical professionals and scientists.

[Ter]

I was vaccinated as a child, so why don't I have autism?

It is a difficult diagnosis when the autism is mild
Seriously, nobody ever said that all vaccinated children go on to develop autism. Maybe 1 in 10,000 or less. If at all of course.

[Saeko]

Fuuuuuuuuucckkkk.

[Bosnjak]

vaccines are the safest medical methode

[Ter]

Absolutely
My only gripe with then are the seldom but serious possible side effects (not autism )

[One Degree]

vaccines are the safest medical methode

Actually, many vaccines are only necessary because we choose to allow unlimited entry into our countries. Medical screenings and isolation would eliminate the need for some vaccinations, but we choose not to inconvenience travelers and insist everyone in our country be inoculated instead and this requires some of our own citizens to pay the price for this convenience. Everyone likes to ignore the impact of world travel. It has serious health consequences.

[Suntzu]

Oh for the good old days and no vaccinations . . . polio, small pox, rabies.

[Decky]

Americans want to be free and this freedom includes peoples freedom to deliberately harm their own children without the damn state interfering! It is every American's right to have their kids infected with Polio!

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

Oh for the good old days and no vaccinations . . . polio, small pox, rabies.

It sucks that people like this are going to get power because we have a conspiracy theorist for president.

Seriously, nobody ever said that all vaccinated children go on to develop autism. Maybe 1 in 10,000 or less. If at all of course.

1 in 68 children develop autism. That means that if your child is vaccinated, they have a 1 in 68 chance of developing autism. But all you're doing is putting together two unrelated facts. The vaccine was caused by the doctor. The autism was caused by an act of God. Nobody can predict your child having autism because we don't know what causes it.

One in 68 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 30% increase from 1 in 88 two years ago, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This newest estimate is based on the CDC's evaluation of health and educational records of all 8-year-old children in 11 states: Alabama, Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina, Utah and New Jersey.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/health/cdc-autism/

[Ter]

1 in 68 children develop autism. That means that if your child is vaccinated, they have a 1 in 68 chance of developing autism. But all you're doing is putting together two unrelated facts. The vaccine was caused by the doctor. The autism was caused by an act of God. Nobody can predict your child having autism because we don't know what causes it.

I stand corrected. I am surprised the incidence is that high.
I suspect, no I am sure, that it is caused by changing the definition of which manifestations can lead to a diagnosis of autism. Under certain definitions, I can also be considered autistic.

In my previous mails I never linked vaccinations to autism. If my posts give that impression, it certainly was not my intention.

[Diligent]

This is tragic. Anti-vaccine activists are garbage. And harmful garbage, at that.

[MistyTiger]

It is a difficult diagnosis when the autism is mild
Seriously, nobody ever said that all vaccinated children go on to develop autism. Maybe 1 in 10,000 or less. If at all of course.

No, I don't have autism.

I think that some parents are just afraid of needles so they find an excuse not to go to a clinic or doctor's office.

[Zagadka]

I have some mental block with needles. I don't mind blood draws, I have one weekly for a medication, but for some reason the concept of squirting fluid into muscle makes me twitch. Bad enough that I never get flu shots.

/random info

[MistyTiger]

I do not like needles because of that pinch but afterwards I am fine.

Flu shots usually do not help since the formula is rarely right. I have only had the H1N1 flu shot and it made me so sick, I was in bed for days.

The best way to prevent the flu is washing hands, eating healthy, and not touching your eyes, mouth, nose when you have not washed your hands.