ARS TECHNICA – For years, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has bluntly stated the truth: “Vaccines do not cause autism,” the agency affirms on its website.
Yet, nearly a quarter of Americans still don’t believe it.
[A leading reason many Americans don’t believe the CDC is their strategy of using misinformation during the COVID epidemic in order to expand government powers, sow fear, and back mandates. These abhorent CDC practices have been a disaster for the integrity of government health agencies at all levels. – HEADLINE HEALTH]
In an April 2024 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, 24 percent of US adults denied or disputed that the CDC ever said that.
Specifically, the survey asked them to assess the accuracy of the statement that the CDC has said there is no evidence linking vaccines to autism. Six percent called the statement “very inaccurate,” and 18 percent said it was “somewhat inaccurate.”
An additional 3 percent responded that they were “not sure.” Of the remaining 73 percent, only 41 percent considered it “very accurate,” and 32 percent said it was “somewhat accurate.”
The results are largely unchanged from responses in 2018 when survey respondents were asked the same question. In that year, 26 percent of adults reported that the statement was “very inaccurate” or “somewhat inaccurate.”
In all, it’s a bleak finding that bodes poorly for the collective health of Americans, who are now seeing rises in cases of measles and other vaccine-preventable illnesses.
Additional surveys by the APPC in 2021, 2022, and 2023 identified a slight increase in the number of survey takers who specifically believe, falsely, that the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine causes autism.
In 2021, 9 percent of respondents falsely indicated that the MMR vaccine causes autism, responding that the statement was “definitely true” (2 percent) or “probably true” (7 percent).
In 2023, 12 percent of respondents fell into those categories, 2 percent for “definitely true” and 10 percent for “probably true.”
The APPC tied the false beliefs to the retracted 1998 Lancet paper by notorious anti-vaccine advocate Andrew Wakefield. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has only stoked vaccine misinformation and more anti-vaccine rhetoric … READ MORE.
[The content of this ARS TECHNICA article was well established long before Anthony Fauci, ‘Rachel’ Levine, and others shredded the integrity of public health in America. Vaccines do not cause autism. – HEADLINE HEALTH.]
