Senator Bill Cassidy and the Louisiana Department of Health Cannot Support the Claim that "Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism"
Part Two of Our Series: What They Don't Want Parents to Know about Vaccines.
Senator Bill Cassidy made a disturbing comment during Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing on Thursday, January 30th. Cassidy was pressuring RFK Jr. to state his allegiance to vaccines by declaring that they are safe and do not cause autism.
“Will you continue what you have been or will you overturn a new leaf at age 70? I recognize, man, if you come out unequivocally, “Vaccines are safe, it does not cause autism,” that would have an incredible impact. That’s your power! So what’s it going to be? Will it be using the credibility to support lots of articles or will it be using credibility to undermine? And I’ve got to figure that out for my vote.”
In this article, Part Two of our series What They Don't Want Parents to Know about Vaccines, we offer valuable insights relevant to this discussion.
On January 23rd, Mawson et al. published a bombshell study, Vaccination and Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Study of Nine-Year-Old Children Enrolled in Medicaid by Mawson and Jacob, in the journal Science, Public Health Policy and the Law. RFK Jr. referenced it in his reply to Cassidy during the hearing. The study involved 47,155 nine-year-olds within the Medicaid system in Florida and analyzed the health outcomes of those vaccinated versus those not. Below are three tables from the study. NDDs are neurodevelopmental disorders.
Nicolus Hulscher of the McCullough Institute summarized the study:
“Overall, vaccinated children were 212% more likely to be diagnosed with at least one neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) compared to unvaccinated children. This includes conditions such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, epilepsy/seizures, encephalopathy (brain dysfunction), tic disorders, and learning disorders.”
“Vaccinated full-term children were significantly more likely to develop a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders compared to their unvaccinated counterparts. The odds of developing conditions like autism (170% higher risk), tic disorders (530% higher risk) and encephalopathy (420% higher risk) highlight the potential impact of vaccination on full-term children’s neurological health.”
“Preterm children who were vaccinated had substantially higher odds of developing neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) compared to preterm children who were unvaccinated. This indicates that preterm children may be especially vulnerable to potential adverse effects of vaccination.”
“The more vaccination visits a child had, the greater their risk of being diagnosed with autism. For instance, children with 11 or more vaccination visits were 340% more likely to have autism compared to unvaccinated children.”
These conclusions are why parents have been gaslit for decades following their child’s vaccine injury and why industry insiders are so desperate to keep RFK Jr. out of the Department of Health and Human Services. These results DO indicate serious harm, including autism, associated with vaccination.
We have been told for decades that, “Vaccines do not cause autism,” yet this study, and HUNDREDS more like it, indicate a significant risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, following one or more vaccinations.
Furthermore, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has compensated at least 83 families for vaccine-induced autism.
While there IS science to support the claim that vaccines can and do cause autism, what science supports the claim that vaccines do not cause autism?
While John Bel Edwards was governor, and under the leadership of Dr. Courtney Phillips, the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) made the claim “vaccines do not cause autism” on their social media and in a podcast linked on the LDH website. This prompted us to submit a public records request asking LDH to provide “all studies relied upon by LDH to claim that the DTaP, Hep B, Hib, PCV13, and IPV vaccine do not cause autism.”
Notice our request makes no mention of the MMR vaccine or specific ingredients like thimerosal.
The CDC's Recommended Childhood Vaccine Schedule includes more than 81 doses of 15 different vaccines, containing over 80 ingredients. As you can see below, the vaccines we inquired about — DTaP, Hep B, Hib, PCV13, and IPV — are given to babies before 6 months of age.
LDH responded to our public records request with this list of studies:
The 2012 Institutes of Medicine (IOM) report, Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality.
This report was commissioned to evaluate the existing library of research to determine if there was an association between pertussis-containing vaccines and autism. The commission found: “The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between diphtheria toxoid–, tetanus toxoid–, or acellular pertussis-containing vaccine and autism.” The IOM committee found one study that did identify an association but they excluded it because it was based on a passive reporting system (VAERS) and the study “lacked an unvaccinated comparison population.” We kid you not. If you read Part One, you know that not a single vaccine on the CDC schedule was licensed with an inert placebo group in the clinical trials.
The pertussis-containing vaccines (DTap), for which the IOM stated “evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship [with autism]”, are given 4 times in the first year of life, including once in utero.
This study does not look at vaccines and autism, but rather the antigen-only component of some vaccines and is not reflective of the childhood schedule. This study even concedes: “It can be argued that ASD [autism spectrum disorders] with regression, in which children usually lose developmental skills during the second year of life, could be related to exposures in infancy, including vaccines;”
Nine thimerosal studies, which are completely irrelevant since thimerosal is not a component of any of the vaccines we inquired about (DTaP, Hep B, Hib, PCV13, and IPV). These studies ignore the other 80+ ingredients in vaccines like aluminum, aborted fetal cell strains, and formaldehyde, just to name a few. See the color-coded excipient list from Health Freedom Institute.
Eight studies on the MMR vaccine and autism, but again, irrelevant since the MMR was not a vaccine we inquired about. Additionally, MMR is not given until one year. By the time they receive the MMR, babies will have received 37 doses of 8 other vaccines.
One of the MMR studies LDH included is the 2004 IOM Review, in which a committee was tasked with studying the association between MMR, thimerosal, and autism. LDH missed the part where the “committee’s conclusion did not exclude the possibility that MMR could contribute to autism in a small number of children” and that “models for an association between MMR and autism were not disproved.”
It's remarkable that LDH included this study—the same controversial 2004 study at the heart of allegations by CDC whistleblower Dr. William Thompson, who claimed that he, along with other CDC scientists, destroyed data indicating black boys had an increased risk of autism following MMR vaccination.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Children’s Health Defense, knows this study well. Dr. Thompson, the CDC whistleblower, contacted him to relay details of the allegations. Dr. Hooker writes:
“…the CDC’s own DeStefano et al. 2004 study showed that children receiving the MMR on time were 1.49 times more likely to get an autism diagnosis as compared to those who got their first MMR after their third birthday. When considering boys alone, DeStefano found that the risk increased to 1.67 times — and both results were statistically significant to a greater than 95% certainty.
The same data the CDC used in DeStefano et al. 2004 were reanalyzed and reported in a peer-reviewed study I authored and published in 2018 in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. African American males in the study were 3.86 times as likely to receive an autism diagnosis if they got the vaccine before age 36 months compared to after age 36 months. This result was highly statistically significant.”
In 2015, Congressman Bill Posey of Florida exposed the fraud allegations made by the CDC whistleblower on the House floor, urging Congress to investigate.
Congress never did.
Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies by Taylor et al. While billed as a meta-analysis, many refer to this study as the “meta-junk” study. This “meta-analysis” looked at studies that either evaluated one vaccine (the MMR), or one ingredient (thimerosal). Author and autism dad, JB Handley, discussed the “meta-junk” study in a 2018 article, Meta-Analysis Madness in Vaccine-Autism Science. Handley writes:
“As you probably know, a ‘meta-analysis’ is an analysis of other studies. The conclusions and data of each study are aggregated, and the hope is that by comparing all these studies, the conclusions reached will be even more robust. It makes sense, and is often helpful. But, it can’t be helpful if the group of studies in your ‘meta-analysis’ only looked at one ingredient and one vaccine.”
Dr. Hooker adds further insight about the studies included in the Taylor et al. meta-analysis:
“A ‘meta-analysis’ is intended to be an unbiased and scientific review of the literature — in this case, to investigate the link between vaccines and autism. Unfortunately, this meta-analysis, authored by Luke E. Taylor, Amy L. Swerdfeger and Guy D. Eslick, is propaganda poorly masquerading as science.
Using standard criteria, the authors searched the open scientific literature and found 46 eligible studies for their meta-analysis. However, rather than consider the entirety of the 46 studies, the authors cherry-picked only 10 studies — all of which concluded there was no link between vaccines and autism.
After reviewing the list of eligible studies, the only reason I can find for selecting these 10 studies is that they all have one thing in common: They support the authors’ preferred foregone conclusion, which is that vaccines have nothing to do with the autism epidemic we’re facing.”
Senator Bill Cassidy referenced this study as proof vaccines do not cause autism.
It is not.
During the confirmation hearing on Thursday, Senator Cassidy touted this study as proof vaccines don’t cause autism. Well, he should fire whoever provided it to him, as it is easily refuted. The dramatics he displayed in the committee while discussing it only served to embarrass him.
Wait. There’s more.
The meta-analysis Cassidy (and LDH) referenced includes the 2004 DeStefano study — the highly controversial study involving the CDC whistleblower!
To recall, Dr. William Thompson was the CDC whistleblower who alleged he, and other CDC scientists, fraudulently covered up the data that showed black boys have a statistically significant increased risk of autism following MMR vaccination.
This looks really, really bad for Senator Bill Cassidy. Especially as a congressman of a state with a large black population.
Not only did he grandstand with a junk study, but that flawed research also includes one of the biggest frauds committed in vaccine science, perpetrated by scientists at a government regulatory agency—the very same agency that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would ultimately oversee as Secretary of HHS.
Cassidy made the biggest blunder of his career when he held up that study.
When physicians, politicians, and pundits repeat the claim that “vaccines do not cause autism,” we know that they have not done their homework. They are relying on propaganda versus reading the scientific literature. The same can be said of using the name “Wakefield.” If you read the study Dr. Andrew Wakefield published, you’ll find that it makes no claim correlating the MMR vaccine and autism. Wakefield’s study states:
“We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.”
Wakefield’s sole recommendation was to split the MMR into three different vaccines, to be given at separate times, because of the potential adverse effects. Watch an interview with Wakefield here.
Wakefield’s original study finding that “chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction,” has been replicated many times over the last several decades including recently in Multikingdom and functional gut microbiota markers for autism spectrum disorder.
What parents and Cassidy need to know. . .
There is no science or data to support the claim that “vaccines do not cause autism.”
Even the CDC had to capitulate when they were legally backed into a corner. The CDC took down from their website “Vaccines do not cause autism” in August 2020 after the Informed Consent Action Network submitted repeated FOIA requests asking them to provide the studies that support their assertion that vaccines given to babies do not cause autism. This is what inspired HFL’s public records request to LDH. Both LDH and the CDC failed to provide documents to back the claim because no such documents exist.
In 2013, HHS commissioned the IOM to review the safety of the entire vaccine schedule and concluded:
“No studies have compared the differences in health outcomes that some stakeholders questioned between entirely unimmunized populations of children and fully immunized children. Experts who addressed the committee pointed not to a body of evidence that had been overlooked but rather to the fact that existing research has not been designed to test the entire immunization schedule. Studies designed to examine the long-term effects of the cumulative number of vaccines or other aspects of the immunization schedule have not been conducted.
Key elements of the entire schedule—the number, frequency, timing, order, and age at administration of vaccines—have not been systematically examined in research studies.”
Since 2013, independent researchers have published studies that compare the health outcomes of unimmunized populations to immunized populations. In every single study where they have compared the outcomes of albeit smaller groups, every single time the vaccinated fared far worse than the unvaccinated, with much higher rates of chronic illness, developmental delays, ear infections, asthma, allergies, etc. These studies are discussed in a recently published book by Brian Hooker, Ph.D. and RFK Jr, Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.
Besides the study utilizing Florida’s Medicaid data mentioned at the beginning of this article, we want to highlight two other studies that look at health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. The first is Evidence of Increase in Mortality After the Introduction of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine to Children Aged 6-35 Months in Guinea-Bissau: A Time for Reflection? by Peter Aaby, who concludes:
“Although having better nutritional status and being protected against three infections [diptheria, tetanus, pertussis], 6-35 months old DTP-vaccinated children tended to have higher mortality than DTP-unvaccinated children. All studies of the introduction of DTP have found increased overall mortality.”
While no longer on the market in the U.S., this study is significant because (1) it illustrates a crucial point: while the vaccine did lower the incidence of the illnesses it targeted, the risks still outweighed those perceived benefits because it increased mortality, and (2) the vaccine in question, the DTP vaccine, was used as the “placebo” in the clinical trials to license the two DTaP vaccines on the market today, Infanrix and Daptacel. See Part One for a discussion on the lack of placebo groups in the clinical trials. This means that a vaccine deemed so harmful it was pulled from the U.S. market was still used as the safety benchmark for the two vaccines currently being given to babies. Not to mention the unethical racial implications of knowingly sending a dangerous product to underdeveloped countries, disregarding the well-being of their people.
We also want to bring attention to Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002 by Gallagher et al., which found:
“Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds for autism diagnosis associated with neonatal hepatitis B vaccination among boys age 3-17 years, born before 1999, adjusted for race, maternal education, and two-parent household. Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life.”
While this study data was evaluated when the Hep B vaccine contained the preservative thimerosal, it sheds doubt on the nine thimerosal studies LDH submitted to us that supposedly indicate no connection between thimerosal and autism.
Cassidy has not done his homework, but you should.
The health freedom community has been aware of these studies for years if not decades now. Everyone should know that science is never settled much less with vaccines, since there are currently no studies to support the claim that “vaccines do not cause autism,” but hundreds indicate otherwise.
The Mawson and Jacob study we highlighted above and that RFK Jr. referenced during the confirmation hearing spotlights easily accessible data. Every state should take de-identified Medicaid data — a publicly funded health system — and evaluate the health outcomes of these two demographics. This is yet another reason the industry wants him out of HHS — he could order it on day one.
America is experiencing a chronic disease epidemic where, according to the CDC, 1 in 6 children has a developmental disability which can “include autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others,” and an estimated 1 in 36 children has autism. For the well-being of our children, nothing is so sacred that it cannot be evaluated for its potential harm to them, including the 81 doses of 15 different vaccines recommended by the CDC.
Please contact Senator Cassidy TODAY (information below) and urge him to vote YES for RFK Jr.
In Part Three, we will discuss how vaccines cannot replicate herd immunity.
Contact Senator Bill Cassidy!
Friends, despite the overwhelming support shown by Louisiana for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as our next Secretary of HHS, Senator Bill Cassidy is still not a confirmed yes. Here is the contact information for Cassidy along with a new email campaign. This message was crafted just for him but you are always welcome to personalize it as needed.
Please take this moment to contact Senator Cassidy by clicking the button below. Don't forget to call both offices too!
Even if you called/emailed last week, do it again today! They are counting the number of messages coming in. Your participation is vital!