What gets lost in this debate, which to me seems settled in favor of the actual science done over the last several decades, is how insulting and dehumanizing it is to use autism spectrum disorder as the boogeyman for vaccines, to the point people are passing on treatment for completely preventable, horrible diseases on the belief there is a small chance their kid could come out gasp "autistic."
Up to 70% of people on the autism spectrum are considered high functioning, requiring minimal to moderate support. That's the other insulting thing about it - the fact that the worst autistic outcomes (nonverbal, low IQ, etc.) are used to represent the whole of the population.
The whole thing is gross. Say somehow you could eliminate autism spectrum disorder - there goes half your IT staff.
I think the real issue is simply that the definition of ASD has been expanded to the point of near-meaninglessness. If we're applying the same label to:
1. Someone who is totally nonverbal and effectively unable to function in society
2. Someone who is kind of socially awkward
...then maybe it's time to come up with a new labeling system. ("Autism" in the context of vaccines usually is implicitly referring exclusively to [1])
It's not near meaningless though. Like not even close. And I'm also not sure people at large going for this argument really care to differentiate because these terms already exist that highlight the differences within the DSM for ASD!
I think the issue is that autism is not necessarily a disorder.
I'm mildly autistic and I like the way I am. Really. I don't consider it a disability at all; it's got pros and cons, but for every thing that I'm worse at than a "normal" person, I feel there's something else equally valuable I'm better at, so it balances out as a slight positive for me and a big positive for humanity because, as the OP alluded to, diversity enables specialisation.
The issue is of course some people genuinely experience autism as a disability, and the more severe it is, the more likely that is to be the case. But you can make a solid argument that autism is not necessarily disability: like height, gigantism is unhealthy, but being tall can be adaptive!
To be clear, me too. I wouldn’t change how I am at all even if it sometimes causes challenges.
There is a movement in neurodivergence trying to define autism as a different human experience, rather than in the framing of a disability, but this is still controversial within autism advocate circles.
I’m high functioning and sure —it’s fine-ish, I have advantages that somewhat balance out my disadvantages, and it’s not like I could change it even if I wanted to, so why despair about it?
However, I’d much rather not have to deal with it in the first place, and if I could be changed, I’d happily change.
If we can avoid future generations having to deal with it at this same relatively high rate, great.
It’s saying that the conditions and traits that tend to select for IT people is often represented in autistic populations. Anyone that’s managed in IT can attest to this. Maybe “half” was a figurative exaggeration for effect, but you seem to be injecting an entirely different meaning and bias into the comment.
> I’m not vilifying you, it was just a poor choice of words.
You're not being honest here. Questioning someone's belief and calling it gross is vilifying, regardless of any agreement or lack thereof from a broader community. Additionally, finding the one disagreeable point and harping on that instead of any of the rest of the points they made is another means of vilification.
I don't agree with all of her book's arguments and associations but Naomi Klein has a compelling explanation for how this happened in her book Doppleganger.
Does there become a point where reporting on this kind of stuff is just feeding the trolls? Ars is both giving them the reaction they want and platforming their nonsense.
The government put up a poster that says vaccines bad very autism and maybe the right response is to just ignore it. This admin seems to be fueled by outrage and very loud showy public displays of basically nothing when you get down to it. Cool story RFK, anyway moving on.
You’ll have to let me know when that has ever really happened. I can’t recall a single government in my lifetime that didn’t push some remarkably stupid and irresponsible nonsense.
People my age probably remember the classic 90s “food pyramid” in school and on the back of sugared cereal boxes — it pushed empty carbs as the the foundation of a healthy diet.
There's a difference between doing something well meant, failing, and improving -vs- going back to theories already proven wrong and harmful. There's a reason we don't have the food pyramid - we're learning.
You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned and that the movement will ultimately fade-away decades down the line?
It seems identical to me: soft corruption and bad science shaping government policy. Annoying and bad, but also hopefully temporary (but may do damage in the meantime). I agree that it happens with all governments. Has everyone forgotten the sea of bad science that was COVID policy? Thank god they arrested that paddle-boarder!
But why? Do you feel the need to respond to those weirdos in the street yelling about how god hates fags and the end of days or whatever? Is anything gained by acknowledging them at all?
There's plenty of real stuff this admin is doing to respond to; focusing on the performative nonsense that exists seemingly to keep them 'winning' in the news cycle to their base might just be wasting your breath.
This is the real stuff this admin is doing. Using the public health apparatus to discredit and dismantle one of the most successful medical projects in human history is real stuff.
Because it normalises dangerous bullshit and that should be a line in the sand for any responsible human. You can’t dismiss it because it’s part of a much wider pattern that is fuelling the justification of other dangerous bullshit we used to suppress in the pursuit of harmony.
> Do you feel the need to respond to those weirdos in the street yelling about how god hates fags and the end of days or whatever?
There's a huge difference between the seriousness of "the official disease control of the US government" saying some nonsense and "random citizens yelling in the street" doing so.
> Is anything gained by acknowledging them at all?
Is there anything gained by ignoring them?
I'm sure it won't seem very performative to the kids who aren't vaccinated and get sick, or autistic folks who don't appreciate the correlation.
> plenty of real stuff this admin is doing to respond to
> “Nah no need to investigate any more, enough people have said they’re satisfied.” Such a person would rightly be scoffed at.
The thing is, you need a new angle for an investigation to be justified.
There have been thousands on studies on vaccines and their long term side-effects. You can't be saying "what if they cause autism" at this point and expect people to drop everything and take you serious. You need to be showing some evidence first because all the low hanging and even high hanging fruit has been picked.
It's like if you were going "wheels don't roll". Sure, maybe they don't and reality spins around them. But there's a gazillion studies about tire composition and their effectiveness so if you want somebody to take you seriously you need to show some work first.
It has been conclusively ruled out. At some point we don't need to keep checking if the Earth is round because no amount of research and evidence will convince some folks. This isn't a science problem, it's a propaganda problem.
Yes, absolutely, but not just a simple propaganda problem. The US is fully engaged in the Propaganda tactics Orwell summarizes from the Franco era. The purpose of the outlandish claims is not to trick a moron, it is to get people to agree to things they know are untrue to show their allegiance to power is more important to them than truth or their own reason.
Because they aren't doing science. Science involves keeping an open mind to try to figure out what the evidence is telling you. The telltale signs that they aren't doing science are especially evident when you listen to the kinds of things they present as evidence.
A propagandist says: autism surged so we must fix our society. A scientist says "did autism increase, or just how often autism is diagnosed?" I don't have to study a lot of data to see that they're purposefully not asking themselves that question. Instead they seem to hope their listener is not aware that medical criteria in diagnosing autism loosened vastly over the period of time. By ignoring the big change in the word, they can instead sell you the idea of a big change in the world.
Again it happens with Tylenol. There's a question of cause and effect. They see this number that says that there's correlation between Tylenol use and autism. But Tylenol use also correlates very highly to being in awful pain, so it turns out that being in awful pain "causes" Autism to the exact same degree that Tylenol does. But RFK isn't interested in this distinction, immediately pointed out by anyone whose goal is actually to determine what the evidence we see might be telling us about reality.
I highly recommend this deep dive, with some entertainment value: Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response [1]. It shows how absurd those claims are
[1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc
What gets lost in this debate, which to me seems settled in favor of the actual science done over the last several decades, is how insulting and dehumanizing it is to use autism spectrum disorder as the boogeyman for vaccines, to the point people are passing on treatment for completely preventable, horrible diseases on the belief there is a small chance their kid could come out gasp "autistic."
Up to 70% of people on the autism spectrum are considered high functioning, requiring minimal to moderate support. That's the other insulting thing about it - the fact that the worst autistic outcomes (nonverbal, low IQ, etc.) are used to represent the whole of the population.
The whole thing is gross. Say somehow you could eliminate autism spectrum disorder - there goes half your IT staff.
I think the real issue is simply that the definition of ASD has been expanded to the point of near-meaninglessness. If we're applying the same label to:
1. Someone who is totally nonverbal and effectively unable to function in society
2. Someone who is kind of socially awkward
...then maybe it's time to come up with a new labeling system. ("Autism" in the context of vaccines usually is implicitly referring exclusively to [1])
It's not near meaningless though. Like not even close. And I'm also not sure people at large going for this argument really care to differentiate because these terms already exist that highlight the differences within the DSM for ASD!
That's why the word "Spectrum" is used
[dead]
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I think the issue is that autism is not necessarily a disorder.
I'm mildly autistic and I like the way I am. Really. I don't consider it a disability at all; it's got pros and cons, but for every thing that I'm worse at than a "normal" person, I feel there's something else equally valuable I'm better at, so it balances out as a slight positive for me and a big positive for humanity because, as the OP alluded to, diversity enables specialisation.
The issue is of course some people genuinely experience autism as a disability, and the more severe it is, the more likely that is to be the case. But you can make a solid argument that autism is not necessarily disability: like height, gigantism is unhealthy, but being tall can be adaptive!
To be clear, me too. I wouldn’t change how I am at all even if it sometimes causes challenges.
There is a movement in neurodivergence trying to define autism as a different human experience, rather than in the framing of a disability, but this is still controversial within autism advocate circles.
I’m high functioning and sure —it’s fine-ish, I have advantages that somewhat balance out my disadvantages, and it’s not like I could change it even if I wanted to, so why despair about it?
However, I’d much rather not have to deal with it in the first place, and if I could be changed, I’d happily change.
If we can avoid future generations having to deal with it at this same relatively high rate, great.
This is a gross misinterpretation of what I said.
Another way to interpret the parent comment would be that a lot of people are autistic.
The parent comment is also saying if they weren’t autistic, half the it force would be gone. Sounds pretty black and white.
It’s saying that the conditions and traits that tend to select for IT people is often represented in autistic populations. Anyone that’s managed in IT can attest to this. Maybe “half” was a figurative exaggeration for effect, but you seem to be injecting an entirely different meaning and bias into the comment.
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> I’m not vilifying you, it was just a poor choice of words.
You're not being honest here. Questioning someone's belief and calling it gross is vilifying, regardless of any agreement or lack thereof from a broader community. Additionally, finding the one disagreeable point and harping on that instead of any of the rest of the points they made is another means of vilification.
I literally did not say this. Go back and read it.
>Say somehow you could eliminate autism spectrum disorder - there goes half your IT staff.
If they didn’t have autism, they wouldn’t be in IT
I don't agree with all of her book's arguments and associations but Naomi Klein has a compelling explanation for how this happened in her book Doppleganger.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45992756
Does there become a point where reporting on this kind of stuff is just feeding the trolls? Ars is both giving them the reaction they want and platforming their nonsense.
The government put up a poster that says vaccines bad very autism and maybe the right response is to just ignore it. This admin seems to be fueled by outrage and very loud showy public displays of basically nothing when you get down to it. Cool story RFK, anyway moving on.
If people get used to ignoring government health recommendations, what happens if a responsible government comes back in power?
You’ll have to let me know when that has ever really happened. I can’t recall a single government in my lifetime that didn’t push some remarkably stupid and irresponsible nonsense.
People my age probably remember the classic 90s “food pyramid” in school and on the back of sugared cereal boxes — it pushed empty carbs as the the foundation of a healthy diet.
There's a difference between doing something well meant, failing, and improving -vs- going back to theories already proven wrong and harmful. There's a reason we don't have the food pyramid - we're learning.
You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned and that the movement will ultimately fade-away decades down the line?
It seems identical to me: soft corruption and bad science shaping government policy. Annoying and bad, but also hopefully temporary (but may do damage in the meantime). I agree that it happens with all governments. Has everyone forgotten the sea of bad science that was COVID policy? Thank god they arrested that paddle-boarder!
It would be more irresponsible to ignore it than anything else. A tempered response would be better.
But why? Do you feel the need to respond to those weirdos in the street yelling about how god hates fags and the end of days or whatever? Is anything gained by acknowledging them at all?
There's plenty of real stuff this admin is doing to respond to; focusing on the performative nonsense that exists seemingly to keep them 'winning' in the news cycle to their base might just be wasting your breath.
Those weirdos on the street aren't your actual government institutions.
This is 1984 territory, without hyperbole. They are rewriting what you see so that you will always have been at war with Eurasia.
This is the real stuff this admin is doing. Using the public health apparatus to discredit and dismantle one of the most successful medical projects in human history is real stuff.
Because it normalises dangerous bullshit and that should be a line in the sand for any responsible human. You can’t dismiss it because it’s part of a much wider pattern that is fuelling the justification of other dangerous bullshit we used to suppress in the pursuit of harmony.
> Do you feel the need to respond to those weirdos in the street yelling about how god hates fags and the end of days or whatever?
There's a huge difference between the seriousness of "the official disease control of the US government" saying some nonsense and "random citizens yelling in the street" doing so.
> Is anything gained by acknowledging them at all?
Is there anything gained by ignoring them?
I'm sure it won't seem very performative to the kids who aren't vaccinated and get sick, or autistic folks who don't appreciate the correlation.
> plenty of real stuff this admin is doing to respond to
I'm sure we can respond to at least 2 things.
No, one should always present a path of how to explain it. This is hard. get the data. gather it.
Consider how strange this would be for a non American to watch this change go through and no one to bat at eye.
This shit is crazy and it needs to be said.
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> “Nah no need to investigate any more, enough people have said they’re satisfied.” Such a person would rightly be scoffed at.
The thing is, you need a new angle for an investigation to be justified.
There have been thousands on studies on vaccines and their long term side-effects. You can't be saying "what if they cause autism" at this point and expect people to drop everything and take you serious. You need to be showing some evidence first because all the low hanging and even high hanging fruit has been picked.
It's like if you were going "wheels don't roll". Sure, maybe they don't and reality spins around them. But there's a gazillion studies about tire composition and their effectiveness so if you want somebody to take you seriously you need to show some work first.
It has been conclusively ruled out. At some point we don't need to keep checking if the Earth is round because no amount of research and evidence will convince some folks. This isn't a science problem, it's a propaganda problem.
Yes, absolutely, but not just a simple propaganda problem. The US is fully engaged in the Propaganda tactics Orwell summarizes from the Franco era. The purpose of the outlandish claims is not to trick a moron, it is to get people to agree to things they know are untrue to show their allegiance to power is more important to them than truth or their own reason.
Because they aren't doing science. Science involves keeping an open mind to try to figure out what the evidence is telling you. The telltale signs that they aren't doing science are especially evident when you listen to the kinds of things they present as evidence.
A propagandist says: autism surged so we must fix our society. A scientist says "did autism increase, or just how often autism is diagnosed?" I don't have to study a lot of data to see that they're purposefully not asking themselves that question. Instead they seem to hope their listener is not aware that medical criteria in diagnosing autism loosened vastly over the period of time. By ignoring the big change in the word, they can instead sell you the idea of a big change in the world.
Again it happens with Tylenol. There's a question of cause and effect. They see this number that says that there's correlation between Tylenol use and autism. But Tylenol use also correlates very highly to being in awful pain, so it turns out that being in awful pain "causes" Autism to the exact same degree that Tylenol does. But RFK isn't interested in this distinction, immediately pointed out by anyone whose goal is actually to determine what the evidence we see might be telling us about reality.
It has been investigated. For decades, in fact. It’s been considered settled science for quite some time.
Why single out autism? Have we ruled out vaccines' links to cancer, diabetes, arthritis, eczema, and stuttering?