Do vaccines cause autism?

The doctor in question, Dr. Pierre Korry, posts an article that he believes explains the mechanisms of how vaccines cause autism and attempts to draw parallels to the COVID vaccine, but he forgets that mRNA vaccines, such as we use for COVID, have very little in common with what the article’s author claims in the mechanism for autism.

The author makes several claims, the first being that vaccines cause autism. First off, there is plenty of evidence that tells us that vaccines do not cause autism.

Not only do the studies done to date show vaccines are not in any way linked to autism, but studies indicate disorganization of the prefrontal cortex in the brains of autistic people. This finding about brains links autism to development that takes place before birth.

Of all the risk factors for developing autism, we know genetics looks the most likely, and being vaccinated is not among them.

The next idea is the supposed unexplained explosion of cases. In reality, the reasons for the rise in autism rates are many: changes in how we diagnose autism, increased awareness, educational changes, and fewer cases of intellectual disability are good explanations for most of the rising rates. Biological risk factors such as a father’s age and premature birth could also explain some of the rising rates.

Next, the author brings up supposed mechanisms of vaccine-induced autism, such as immune activation, inflammatory cytokines, brain inflammation, and heavy metals.

Immune activation, inflammatory cytokines, etc, are all parts of a living immune system. Any infection, allergy, or injury will cause immune activation and the release of inflammatory cytokines. Vaccines are just a way of introducing you to an antigen without getting sick from the disease you’re being vaccinated against.

Heavy metals are a large part of this article. One familiar villain is thimerosal, an organic mercury compound that was removed from all routine childhood vaccines since 2001, over 20 years ago. If autism rates have gone up since then, thimerosal is not the cause.

Aluminum is the next villain, citing one study that claimed to find aluminum in five autistic children’s brains. The study included no information on vaccination records. With hundreds of millions of children around the world vaccinated each year, a case study of 5 exceptional brains is not evidence that vaccines cause autism.

Of course, COVID vaccines contain no aluminum or mercury, so the leap Dr. Kory made from pandemic misinformation to autism misinformation cannot be based on any of the above evidence.

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