How a British physician created the vaccine fable behind Trump’s autism announcement
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On Monday President Trump and the U.S. Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press convention wherein they made extraordinary new claims about autism. They instructed a possible hyperlink between using Tylenol throughout being pregnant and the event of autism. In addition they advocated spacing out childhood vaccinations.
The 2 males’s curiosity within the hyperlink between vaccines and autism goes again many years however these claims didn’t originate within the US. They hint again to the UK in 1998, when disgraced former physician Andrew Wakefield first printed his now-debunked idea linking MMR vaccines to autism instances in kids.
At the moment on the World Story science journalist Adam Rutherford explains how the Wakefield vaccine conspiracy turned the largest medical disinformation catastrophe in current historical past, and the way these concepts discovered fertile floor within the Trump administration.
Each weekday, that is The World Story. The world is altering. Choices made within the US and by the second Trump administration are accelerating that change. However they’re additionally a symptom of it. With Asma Khalid in DC, Tristan Redman in London, and the backing of the BBC’s worldwide newsroom, The World Story brings readability to politics, enterprise and overseas coverage in a time of connection and disruption. For extra episodes, simply search ‘The World Story’ wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.
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