Do COVID vaccines give rodents autism?

Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference that, for the most part, occurs prior to birth. In one study, researchers found evidence that autism starts during pregnancy, based on analysis of brain tissue showing disrupted development in children with autism. These developmental differences were found in nearly all samples of brains from autistic children, regardless of the diversity of their symptoms.

The podcast’s claims that the COVID vaccine causes autism is based on a study that looked at a few selected chosen offspring of 15 female rats, some given a full, human dose of COVID vaccine during pregnancy, and determined there was an increase of “autism-like behaviors” in selected pups from the vaccinated group. These behaviors included decreased social interaction and increased repetitive behaviors.

Concluding from this study the COVID vaccines cause autism in humans is premature. The study itself cautions that “drawing conclusions from animal models has its limitations.” Secondly, the rats received large doses of the vaccine: the equivalent of a human receiving hundreds of vaccines.

Other histological testing that showed a difference between the vaccine and non-vaccine wings of the study was done with just 3-4 rats in each group, which is an extremely small sample size.

There are also concerns about the study design itself. The methods section gave no indication that the rats were blinded, meaning that the researchers likely knew which rats were born to vaccinated mothers. Since observation was a large part of the study, their biases could have influenced the description of their behaviors. Additionally, they didn’t actually look at known autism genes, nor did they use a positive control using an established autism rat model.

Moreover, we know from countless studies, vaccines are not associated with autism.