Trump has touted his success as a businessman as his chief qualification for the Oval Office. But he also offered up some medical opinions last night, particularly on the question of vaccines.
CNN moderator Jake Tapper directed a question to candidate Dr. Ben Carson about his difference in opinion with Donald Trump about the link between autism and vaccines. This association has been discredited by two decades of medical research, including nine consecutive CDC studies.
“Dr. Carson, Donald Trump has publicly and repeatedly linked vaccines, childhood vaccines, to autism, which, as you know, the medical community adamantly disputes,” Jake Tapper said. “You’re a pediatric neurosurgeon. Should Mr. Trump stop saying this?”
Carson didn’t directly answer the question as to whether businessman Trump should stop talking like he’s a doctor and said:
“There have been numerous studies, and they have not demonstrated that there is any correlation between vaccinations and autism.”
Trump used the question meant for Carson to get an upper hand and offer an anecdote from “just the other day” about a two-year-old child getting a fever one week after receiving a vaccine. Trump claims the child became autistic.
Trump added that he isn’t against vaccines, but thinks the dosages should be more spaced out. The American Academy of Pediatrics told The Washington Post there’s no evidence such a vaccine schedule is needed.
Carson’s weak response to Trump’s claims drew immediate criticism from doctors and pediatricians on social media.
“No Ben Carson,” Baltimore pediatrician Scott Krugman wrote on Twitter. “The answer is ‘yes’ Donald Trump is wrong. Vaccines don’t cause autism. What are you talking about?”
Trump said that autism had become an epidemic. “It has gotten totally out of control.”
Trump cited research that has been debunked and had fake data. Scientists alleged that lead author Andrew Wakefield could not have accidentally published wrong data. Instead it was manipulated in some way, according to a Washington Post news story from 2011.
The 1998 paper had been retracted from the medical journal the Lancet. Wakefield underwent disciplinary proceedings and had his medical license revoked.
Rand Paul who is a doctor chimed into the debate: “I’m all for vaccines,” he said. “But I’m also for freedom.”
Autism groups expressed outrage at the message and tone of the debate.
“While no link exists between autism and vaccines, of greater concern is the willingness of those who promote this theory to suggest that exposing children to deadly diseases would be a better outcome than an autistic child,” the Autistic Self Advocacy Network said in a statement.
The group continued: “Vaccinations do not cause autism – but the use of autism as a means of scaring parents from safeguarding their children from life-threatening illness demonstrates the depths of prejudice and fear that still surrounds our disability.”
The statement concluded: “Autism is not caused by vaccines – and Autistic Americans deserve better than a political rhetoric that suggests that we would be better off dead than disabled.”
