Mom Schools Pro-Pharma PhD on Vaccine-Autism Study

So I was on X the other day and in my feed appeared a post from Ian Copeland, PhD, who describes himself in his profile as a “PhD Geneticist” and “Debunker of Nonsense”.

In his post, Mr. PhD proclaimed,

A study conducted among a total of ~590000 children shows that higher Autism rates are associated with lower vaccination rates.

There is no evidence that shows vaccines cause Autism. The data shows the opposite.

Thus, the claim that Mr. PhD was making is that scientific data show that vaccines are protective against autism.

To support that claim, he cited a study published in JAMA Pediatrics titled “Vaccination Patterns in Children After Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis and in Their Younger Siblings“.

Accompanying his post was the following graph from the study:

The PhD’s statement that the study shows that “higher Autism rates are associated with lower vaccination rates” comes directly from the conclusion stated in the study’s abstract, which is as follows:

Children with ASD and their younger siblings were undervaccinated compared with the general population. The results of this study suggest that children with ASD and their younger siblings are at increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Notice, however, that the study’s authors did not conclude that this means that their findings show that vaccines are protective against autism.

Also note that the proper interpretation of this stated conclusion absolutely depends on the study’s methodology. It matters what the aim of the study was and how its authors set out trying to test their hypothesis.

Furthermore, notice that what the graph actually shows is not autism rates of vaccinated versus unvaccinated (or “undervaccinated”) children but vaccination rates among children who have a sibling with autism compared to children without an autistic sibling.

Mr. PhD didn’t bother to elucidate any of those details.

So along came a mom, who appropriately replied to Mr. PhD’s claim by reasonably and respectfully stating,

Apologies, but that’s not what I took from the study you posted. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the children diagnosed with Autism had been vaccinated with the usual childhood vaccine schedule between 1mo-12mos, and the study aim was to evaluate whether or not there would be a change in vaccination patterns in the children and their younger siblings associated with this ASD diagnosis.

She then pasted the text of the study’s abstract in which the researchers’ objectives and study design were summarized.

For that grave heresy against the vaccine religion, the mom was treated to ridicule by Mr. PhD, who responded by ignoring her point, insulting her, and ignorantly reiterating his own misinterpretation of the study’s findings. To that end, he quoted from the abstract’s conclusion, as follows:

Typical antivax tactic…

“Children with ASD and their younger siblings were undervaccinated compared with the general population. The results of this study suggest that children with ASD and their younger siblings are at increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

You conveniently left out this part though right…?

So, to summarize, the self-proclaimed “debunker” with a PhD after his name claimed that the scientific evidence shows that children who are fully vaccinated are at lower risk of autism compare with children who are unvaccinated or “undervaccinated”.

To support that claim, he cites a study finding that autistic children are less likely to be fully vaccinated than children without autism.

A mom capable of doing her own research and thinking for herself then responded by correctly observing that the PhD’s conclusion cannot be drawn from the study’s findings.

She even showed why the PhD was misinterpreting by quoting from the abstract, which provides the context necessary to understand the stated conclusion.

Yet, instead of answering the mom’s respectful request to correct her if she was mistaken, the PhD proceeded to simply dismiss her offhand and to obstinately reiterate the same misinterpretation she had correctly identified.

He refused to acknowledge his own obvious error.

Thus, Mr. PhD was guilty of the very dishonesty he falsely accused the mom of. Talk about hypocritical projection!

That prompted me to respond with a post of my own, in which I observed:

See, it’s not that children who are fully vaccinated are at lower risk of autism, like the PhD claims, but that children at greater risk of autism got pooled into the “undervaccinated” group because of parental concerns about detrimental effects of vaccination on neurological development.

Parents who have an older vaccinated child with autism are more likely to skip shots with younger siblings out of concerns that vaccination can contribute to the development of autism.

Similarly, parents who start out vaccinating but start seeing concerning signs of developmental abnormalities are more likely to slow down or skip shots on the schedule out of concern that sticking with the CDC’s schedule will be detrimental to their child’s neurological development.

This is a known selection bias in observational studies of vaccines and autism, called “healthy user bias” (or healthy vaccinee bias in this case).

Well done, mom! ?

This is exactly why so many of us parents do not trust “experts”. Experts lie to us constantly, so we do our own research, think for ourselves, and trust our own judgment.

Of course, by spreading such #VaccineMisinformation, guys like Copeland are just following the example set by the #CDC.

The PhD will have no response to that. At least, he won’t have anything intelligent to say in response to it, unless he demonstrates a modicum of intellectual honesty by admitting his error.

But I really appreciate the response I received from the mom, Colleen Maguire, who is also an anesthesiologist. There is great wisdom in her words, which I would like to share now with you:

?thank you. It’s a crazy time to try to navigate the world…and Twitter/X ??.

I sincerely want to know the truth, the facts as best we know them, and not be told what to think, or what to do…not as a mother, nor as a physician.

It has been painstaking for me to try to navigate the literature around Covid, made so much worse by public mudslinging and defending of arguments/narratives, rather than clear and well reasoned presentation of facts “on both sides.”

I sincerely think we need more public, in person, moderated debate on Covid/mRNA vaccines. Let the science speak for itself without additional bias or the pull of “narratives.” (Ideology around vaccines or therapies is not scientific.)

The number of times I have seen posts with studies where the data and conclusions are totally misrepresented, or ridiculed and labelled “misinformation!” – often by highly influential people with many, many followers – is stunning to me, and deeply concerning, particularly because I believe if I am having trouble deciphering it, imagine what the average person with no scientific or medical background has to face.

We must also hold to account the media/social media, and media censorship/algorithms for this mess – something I have only recently awakened to, it is tragic.

It’s appalling, embarrassing, and distressing, to say the least, and it is no wonder to me that the public has lost faith in physicians – we are not giving them any reason to have faith in us if we can’t even settle our own debates respectfully and with facts. And without distorting the facts (!!!!!)

This stuff is tough, but we must do better.…
(First, do no harm!)

For as long as you can remember, you have heard the claim that scientific studies have falsified the hypothesis that vaccines administered according the the CDC’s schedule can contribute to the development of autism in susceptible children.

The truth is that the hypothesis has never been tested.

This exchange on X is a wonderful illustration of that reality, and how “experts” attempt to perpetrate the hoax claim that the hypothesis has been falsified by grossly mischaracterizing their own cited sources.

Moral of the story: do your own research, think for yourself, and trust your own judgment.

To learn more, read my article “Why the Claim ‘Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism’ Is Disinformation”, and listen to my discussion with Bretigne Shaffer on her podcast about that article:

Update, December 15: Copeland replied to my X post to vainly claim I had engaged in strawman argumentation, i.e., that I was claiming he said something he didn’t say:

Except that my characterization of his argument is accurate!

No further response from Mr. PhD.

All he’s got is ad hominem argumentation, calling anyone who tells the truth an “antivaxer” and insulting their intelligence. Guys like this are intellectual and moral cowards. An intellectually honest gentleman would accept the correction and retract his false claim based on his gross misinterpretation of the study.