No matter how many near-tragedies and public health crises can be directly attributable to the anti-vax movement, the fight to curb its influence is still an ongoing and difficult one.
After all, parents will, naturally, never stop worrying about the well-being of their children and as long as people find the right way to exploit that fear, they can almost guarantee an audience for themselves.
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But when a group of people so fervently cry that vaccines cause autism, it becomes very easy to get so caught up in trying to prove them wrong that we miss the uncomfortable implications behind what they’re saying.
And those implications are a large part of why the anti-vax movement is causing as many problems for actual autistic people as it is for public health.
As Zoe Gross of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network sees it, there’s a lot to unpack about parents’ refusal to vaccinate their kids over autism fears.
As she told BuzzFeed News, “It reinforces the belief that an autistic person begins as a neurotypical person and there’s some way of getting them back to that state. It’s difficult to get people to calm down about autism when this stuff is out there.”
When autism is treated as the result of “damage” by any external force rather than a naturally occurring human variation, that can and does undermine acceptance of autistic people.
As Morénike Giwa Onaiwu of the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network put it, “I know what it’s like to be inundated with messages that your child is broken; that your child is going to suffer; that it’s somehow your fault; that you must wage war against this unseen force that has wedged a barrier between your child and the rest of the world.”
However, she said, those messages aren’t the truth.
Not only that, but the refusal among anti-vaxxers to undergo vaccinations illustrates some particularly worrying implications about how they view autism.
As Gross said, “Essentially, it seems to imply that death is preferable to autism — whether that’s the death of one’s own unvaccinated child or the deaths of other innocent people whose health was endangered by exposure to others who chose not to vaccinate.”
Unfortunately, propping that stigma up isn’t the only problem anti-vaxxers present for parents of autistic children.
As Shannon Des Roches Rosa experienced when she was looking for resources to support her son, there are no shortage of fake “cures” that not only do nothing, but potentially expose children to harmful side effects.
For instance, it’s well-known that some anti-vaxxers tend to treat essential oils as a cure-all, but Time reported that some research has found that these have the potential to disrupt hormones in unclear and potentially harmful ways.
The research isn’t conclusive enough to warn people against using them at all, but using them to “cure” autism involves applying an unnecessary risk towards a result that flat-out won’t happen.
Unfortunately, it isn’t just anti-vaxxers who can end up contributing to stigmas surrounding autism.
Gross told BuzzFeed News that even researchers, doctors, and public health officials can often focus too heavily on the challenging aspects of autism or describe it as an “epidemic.”
As she put it, “If with one hand, you’re trying to put out the fire of people being scared of vaccines…and with the other hand you’re putting gas on the flames of people being scared about autism, you’re not going to put out that fire.”
There’s also the issue that the expensive and time-consuming process of trying to prove anti-vaxxers wrong is robbing autistic people of potentially helpful research.
Gross said that the more persistent this issue gets, the more research and funding thereof goes towards trying to determine the cause of autism and confirming again and again that vaccines are safe.
This leaves little time and money for research for matters of concern to many autistic adults such as health changes that could arise as they age, or concrete, scientifically tested ways to help them develop their communication skills.
All that anti-vax communities can do for parents with autistic children is waste their time, money, and efforts on a series of disheartening wild goose chases.
For her part, Giwa Onaiwu instead recommends focusing on making a connection with their kids, identifying and building on their strengths, and adapting to their needs.
After admittedly falling for anti-vaxxer pseudoscience herself, Rosa said she and her husband rejected it and worked towards ensuring their son is happy, healthy, and receives the right support.
Ultimately, there are two key messages Gross has for those with any remaining inclination towards anti-vaxxer claims.
As she said, “I would like people to be aware that vaccines don’t cause autism, because they don’t. I would also like people to let go of the idea that it is better to risk killing your child or someone else’s with a vaccine-preventable disease than for the kid to be autistic.”
h/t: BuzzFeed News
