On January 23rd, 2004 my life changed forever. My younger brother, Sean, was born with Down Syndrome and it was from this day on I became extremely invested in the Special Needs community. One day while we were at the beach my mom was keeping Sean away from the sun by keeping him under a picnic table. One of the people at the beach that day was a woman named Mindy. Mindy is the volunteer coordinator at a camp for Special Needs children and adults called Camp ANCHOR. She walked over and saw my brother under the table and asked my mom, “Are you going to sign him up for ANCHOR?”. Since ANCHOR is such a special place and there is limited space, there is a five-year waiting list. Mindy suggested that it was best if my mom wanted Sean to be able to do ANCHOR right when he turned five to sign him up that day. My mother did and the year Sean turned five he started his first summer at ANCHOR. His group always had family days and I would attend and always had an amazing time. When I started to get older Mindy would always ask when I was going to volunteer. I had to wait until I was fourteen because that is the minimum age to volunteer at ANCHOR. When I turned fourteen I was given a volunteer job and couldn’t be more excited. At this time in my life I had really only been introduced to Down Syndrome and when I was assigned to an Autistic group I was told that it was going to be very different than Down Syndrome. Over the course of my three summers volunteering I had been in three different Autistic groups. I am now getting paid at ANCHOR and I’ve been in the same group for the past four summers. My group is ten to fifteen year olds with severe low-functioning Autism. From having six summers of working with Autistic children I have become very invested in this mental disorder.

Autism (ASD) is a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. Autism is a spectrum disorder. This means that an individual with Autism could be high-functioning and in a regular education class or they could be, like my campers, severely low-functioning and nonverbal. There is no direct cause for one’s child getting Autism but many parents believe that it is due to vaccines.

A vaccine is a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease. Vaccines prevent us from getting sick. When we are a certain age we need to have specific vaccines given to us. Some parents would rather risk their child getting a horrible disease such as tuberculous. The reason why parents believe there is a link between Autism and vaccines is due to the increase in the awareness of Autism. Until not very long ago people weren’t aware of Autism. Once people started to become aware of it Autism was on the rise. Parents didn’t know what was going on and were scared and wanted to find a blame: vaccines. Let me just start to say that there is absolutely no link between Autism and vaccines. 

Many parents will do whatever it takes to make sure their children are healthy, which is normal. Some go to the extreme and only eat organic foods during pregnancy, not taking any medicine during pregnancy, having a natural birth (not getting any pain killers during labor), and not vaccinating their children once they are born. Over the years there have been many court cases that have been brought up over the debate of Autism and vaccines. People believe that the MMR vaccine is the cause of Autism but this is proven wrong. A lot of parents fear the idea that their child will get Autism and other parent’s children have taught them that the vaccine that they received were not the cause of their Autism. Although there are many court cases that claim that vaccines are not the cause of Autism there are still some where hospitals have awarded families money for their child getting Autism possibly from a vaccine. Many people are given misinformation on the rise of Autism, they believe the rise of Autism is because of vaccines but in reality it’s from the rise in awareness of Autism.

Many parents refuse to vaccinate their children over the fear that they will get Autism. They want to have a “natural baby” and will take all the precautions to make sure their children don’t get Autism. Juniper Russo, mother of a daughter with Autism, originally believed the theory that vaccines cause Autism. When Russo’s daughter was born she refused to vaccinate her. She did everything she could to make sure she would have a healthy and perfect baby, “I battled the imaginary foe called Medicine with all my strength. I avoided anything but organic, whole foods, imagining that a baby knitted together with carrot juice and quinoa would be guaranteed a healthy life. Corn syrup and microwave meals were off the menu, along with tuna and deli meat. When I started receiving prenatal care, I vehemently asserted that I wanted to avoid any and all “interventions” that could hurt my baby.” (Russo). She wanted her baby to be a “natural” baby. When it was time for her daughter to get vaccinated she refused, even after her pediatrician insisted. She never vaccinated her daughter and at her four-month check up the doctor gave her a referral to Early Intervention because her daughter was having developmental delays. Her muscles weren’t responding as they should and her gross motor development was below average. She spent weeks crying because she believed she did everything right, “ I was doing everything right, and developmental delays were supposed to happen to other people’s children.” (Russo). As the years went by she realized that she didn’t do anything wrong, that if her daughter was going to have Autism it would be decided at birth not by whether or not they get vaccinated, “ I couldn’t deny that my daughter had developmental delays well before she was ever vaccinated…By the time my daughter was three, I could no longer deny three things: she was developmentally different, she needed to be vaccinated, and vaccines had nothing to do with her differences.” (Russo). Russo came to the realization that her daughters differences weren’t the cause of a vaccine and she ended up getting her fully vaccinated after this realization. Once her son was born (she didn’t have him be a “natural” baby) she got him vaccinated as he should have been and she wasn’t afraid of the medicine anymore because she knows that vaccines don’t cause Autism and that it’s more important to prevent her child from diseases than to prevent him from Autism. 

There are many court cases that fight the idea that vaccines are the cause of Autism. In the summer of 2010, Lauren Haertlein J.D./M.A. candidate in 2012 at Duke University of Law, interned with the Office of Special Masters. As a lawyer she fought many court cases that disputed the idea that vaccines cause Autism. She stated that despite fears from parents that their child will get Autism from a vaccine, the evidence that vaccines causes Autism does not exist. Since 2002 the federal court that deals with vaccine-injury disputes (the Vaccine Court) has been at the center of the debate that vaccines causes Autism. 2010 marked the conclusion of six cases that had been selected to test the theories about how vaccines cause Autism. In August of 2010 a final decision came from the last unresolved test case. Cedillo v. Department of Health & Human Services where the Federal Circuit declared that the Vaccine Court’s finding that there was nothing that presented a viable theory about how vaccines cause autism and it didn’t prove that the vaccination that the opposing client received caused her Autism.

Many parents believe that there is an ingredient in the MMR vaccine that causes autism. An article entitled “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  states that the ingredients in vaccines have no link to autism. According to the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health “The evidence that measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccine does not cause autism grows ever stronger. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has a significant genetic component: there is increased risk of ASD in the siblings of affected children. The controversy around MMR vaccine and autism has resulted in some parents delaying giving MMR vaccine to children who have an older sibling with ASD.” (Mellis)  Although many people believe that the MMR vaccine causes Autism there is evidence that this is untrue. In this study they also found that “An ingenious retrospective US study studied the rate of ASD in younger siblings of children with ASD, comparing those who had or had not received MMR vaccine. A health plan database was searched for children enrolled from birth to at least 5 years old who had a continuously enrolled older sibling.” (Mellis) People don’t believe this evidence and if their older child has Autism they don’t get their younger child vaccinated because of this belief. “ The prevalence of ASD in children with older siblings was 1.0% (994 of 95 727). Of the 95 727 children with at least one older sibling, 1929 (2.0%) had an older sibling with ASD. The younger sibling of a child with ASD was less likely to have received at least one dose of MMR vaccine than other children (73% vs. 84% at 2 years and 86% vs. 92% at 5 years). MMR vaccine was not associated with ASD in the younger siblings of children with ASD.” (Mellis) This research proves that there is no link between Autism and the MMR vaccine and that parents should get their children vaccinated.

As bad as it sounds, many parents fear the idea of their child getting Autism. In an article written by Alison Knopf from The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter, Knopf states that it is frightening for a parent of a child with Autism to not know what caused it and if there was a way to prevent it. She continues to state that one thing is true: vaccines do not cause Autism. Parents who don’t believe this are seen every day by pediatricians in America. On January 10th after a meeting with President Trump and Kennedy Fernando Stein (M.D., AAP president) and Karen Remley (M.D., AAP CEO/executive vice president) they stated that vaccines are made to prevent life-threatening diseases and that they have been part of the fabric of our society for years. They said that “Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives.” The claims that vaccines cause Autism have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature.

Many parents learn through their children that vaccines are not the cause of Autism. Peter Hotez is the President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute which is a non-profit organization that is devoted to vaccines and immunizations. He is also the father of four kids, one of them having Autism. In his article entitled, “The Speaking of Medicine”, he states “I have a unique perspective on the recent headlines surrounding vaccines and their alleged links to autism. I serve as President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to vaccines and immunization. In that role I am director of its product development partnership (PDP) based at Baylor College of Medicine – the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development,... But I’m also a father of four children, including my adult daughter Rachel who has autism and other mental disabilities. These two parts of my life place me at an interesting nexus in a national discussion of autism and vaccines. My position is firm: there is no link and I also believe there is no plausibility to such a link.” (Hotez) In his recent PLOS Medicine Paper (that predicts Texas will soon have measles epidemics due to widespread non-medical exemptions) he refutes both the MMR vaccine and thimerosal as having any role in autism. 

On the other hand hospitals are still awarding families money for their child getting Autism. In 2008 a family was awarded money from a court case that claimed that vaccines were at fault for the child’s Autism. The court decided that in the vaccines given in the July of 2000 “aggravated a pre-existing cellular disorder resulting in brain damage that included features of autism” (Weber). According to the court, the vaccine could have been the cause of this child’s Autism. This case re-opened the debate on whether or not vaccines cause Autism. Since parents are so nervous about vaccines, as a precaution “thimerosal has been removed from all childhood vaccines except for one DTaP and three flu vaccines that contain trace amounts” (Weber). Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative that use to be present in vaccines. This case has given the supporters of the anti-vaccines movement reason to protect children from getting Autism. 

Even though there are many studies that prove that vaccines don’t cause Autism, there are still some studies that prove that it has. In the article “The Autism-Vaccine Story: Fiction and Deception?” Wakefield and colleagues published a study that was done because of the theory that the MMR vaccine causes Autism. This study of twelve children suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. There were at least twenty other studies performed and they all failed to show a link between autism and vaccines. Out of the at least twenty-one studies only one suggested a link between autism and vaccines. It stated that the bottom line is that convincing evidence showed that there is no link between autism and vaccines and that one study that did suggest the link couldn’t be accurate compared to the other twenty.

People refer to the misinformation they hear rather than reality. Hearing about one study that did cause Autism makes parents forget all the other studies that disproved it. In a YouTube video by DNews we are told that the theory that vaccines causing Autism is just a conspiracy. One thing is for sure, science does not know what causes Autism but it is definitely not vaccines. DNews states that if you don’t get your child vaccinated you will have a bigger problem then them getting Autism. There is a study in the Journal of Pediatrics that found that the CDC’s schedule of vaccinations to be completely unrelated to Autism. Many people are scared that it is unknown what causes Autism and it is easy for them to believe that the cause of Autism is from vaccines. The study done in the Journal of Pediatrics has given us proof that this theory is in-fact just a theory and is not true. According to DNews, since this study was conducted the rate of vaccinations have improved and more people are beginning to listen to the facts rather than the rumors that they have heard. In another video also done by DNews they explain what is causing the rise in Autism. Many people believe that vaccines cause Autism because of the rise that has occurred. The reason for the rise in Autism is because people are starting to become more aware of Autism. Doctors have started to ask questions directly about Autism. In the past doctors have never directly asked about Autism and now that they are people are more aware the rates of Autism are rising. This has no link to vaccines because Autism will be in your genes and a vaccine will not change your genes.

The rise of autism is not an actual rise of autism, it is a rise in how aware people are now with autism. In the past doctors never asked questions specifically on autism and now they do. Because of this there has been a rise in autism. Parents like to believe everything they hear and they believe the theory that vaccines cause autism. They become afraid and don't vaccinate their child which will increase diseases. I believe it is truly horrible that parents are risking the health of their child than getting them vaccinated because of the untrue theory of it increasing the risk of Autism. Children can get very sick because of this. Parents should never risk their child getting a horrible disease just because they may get autism. Doctors will tell parents that a vaccine will not cause their child to have autism and parents still don’t believe them. Children should be vaccinated. Doctors would never give a child something that will harm them. That being said Autism should not be seen as a bad thing. If anything it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to some parents. Kids with autism will teach you what unconditional love is. They will never be mean to someone on purpose, they show us how we are suppose to live. Parents should not risk their child getting a horrible disease such as Tuberculosis because they believe Autism is so bad. Yes, having a child with Autism can be challenging at times but it also is one of the greatest things that have happened to many of the families I know. The children in my group are the light of my life, they make me a better person. There may be some bad days where the kids are difficult but at the end of the day they are changing my life for the better and I will be forever grateful for that. My life has forever been changed since 2004 and I am forever grateful for this. I am studying to be a Special Education teacher and hope to someday work in a classroom with Autistic children.  The end of the story is, parents should trust their doctors and get their child properly vaccinated because there is no link between Autism and Vaccines.
