If It’s Vaccines, Then Why Are There Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated?

Although we know that vaccines aren’t associated with autism, anti-vaccine folks can’t let go of the idea.

So how do they explain all of the autistic kids who are unvaccinated?

If It’s Vaccines, Then Why Are There Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated?

Of course, anti-vaccine folks have a ready answer – it’s vaccines, but it’s not just vaccines.

I guess that’s how they explain the fact that there are so many autistic adults too! Well, actually no. Most anti-vaccine folks are surprised when you point out that there are so many autistic adults, as it doesn’t fit in with their idea that autism is new and caused by kids getting more vaccines than they used to.

Well, I guess mostly caused by giving so many more vaccines than we used to – there are also the autistic kids who were never vaccinated.

How do they explain those kids having autism?

Like their competing theories about how vaccines are associated with autism (it’s the MMR vaccine, no it’s thimerosal, no it’s glyphosate contaminating vaccines, etc.), they have a lot of ideas about how everything else causes autism. From fluoride and chlorine to acetaminophen and aluminum-lined containers, plus mercury, arsenic, aspartame, MSG, and the vaccines your child’s great-grandmother received – they think that just about anything and everything can cause autism. Or at least anything that they think they can sell you a treatment for, such as their supplements, special diet plans, or other “cures.”

Makes you wonder why they still focus on vaccines…

But they do, even as more studies have shown that vaccines are not associated with autism. And since vaccines don’t cause autism, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are unvaccinated children with autism. The only reason there aren’t more is that most parents vaccinate their children, so, of course, most autistic children are going to be vaccinated.

Another reason is that some parents stop vaccinating their kids once they have an autistic child. But since vaccines aren’t associated with autism, which is highly genetic and inheritable, younger unvaccinated siblings born after older siblings were diagnosed often still develop autism.

Now if vaccines didn’t cause autism in these unvaccinated kids, why would anyone still think that they caused autism in their older siblings?

“I must admit that it was through conversations with a coworker that I began to suspect something might be wrong with my youngest son. It concerned me so much that I started looking for information online. I read some of the stories and they sounded similar to what I was experiencing with my son – with the symptoms, the regression and the age at which it all started to become apparent.”

Lara’s Story: Growing Up Anti-Vaccine

Unlike some other stories you might read online, Lara’s story is about her unvaccinated autistic child.

She isn’t alone. You only have to look at personal stories and posts in parenting forums to see that there are many cases of autism among unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children:

• “It is highly likely my 4-year-old son is autistic. And he is completely 100 percent vaccine-free. And I am just at a total loss.”
• “I have unvaxxed kids on the spectrum, and my friend does as well.”
• “A good friend’s son is autistic. He is totally non-vaxxed.”
• “I seriously delayed vaccinating my son, so had very few vaxxes at the time he was diagnosed”
• “We have autism in our unvaxxed children”
• “I know two little boys who are both autistic, completely non-vaxxed”
• “I have two unvaccinated children who are on the autism spectrum and have never vaccinated any of my children.”
• “I am not sure what caused my son’s autism, but autistic he is. He is completely unvaxxed as we stopped vaxxing 10 years ago.”
• “I have a 10 year old daughter with autism spectrum disorder… My daughter has never had a vaccine, a decision I made shortly after she was born, after much research.”

Unfortunately, while realizing that unvaccinated children can develop autism does help some parents move away from anti-vaccine myths and conspiracy theories, others get pushed deeper into the idea that it is just about toxins. It is not uncommon for some of these parents to blame vaccines they got while pregnant or even before they became pregnant, Rhogam shots, or mercury fillings in their teeth, etc.

Fortunately, most don’t though.

Take Juniper Russo, for example.

She “was afraid of autism, of chemicals, of pharmaceutical companies, of pills, of needles” when she had her baby. She just knew that vaccines caused autism when she first visited her pediatrician after her baby was born and knew all of the anti-vaccine talking points. She also later began to realize that her completely unvaccinated daughter had significant developmental delays. Instead of continuing to believe that vaccines cause autism, Ms. Russo understood that she “could no longer deny three things: she was developmentally different, she needed to be vaccinated, and vaccines had nothing to do with her differences.”

And she understands that her autistic child isn’t damaged, as hard as folks in the anti-vaccine movement still try to push the idea that she is.

More on Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated

• The quest for autism’s causes, and what it reveals about all of us
• Busting Anti-Vaccine Myths While Supporting Autistic People
• VAXOPEDIA – Andrew Wakefield Is Not A Fraud?
• VAXOPEDIA – Expert Statements on Vaccines and Autism
• VAXOPEDIA – Explaining the Correlation of Autism After Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – Vaccines and Autism Redux
• VAXOPEDIA – How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Hurts Autistic Families
• Lara’s Story: Growing Up Anti-Vaccine
• How My Daughter Taught Me that Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism
• Study – Vaccination Patterns in Children After Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis and in Their Younger Siblings
• Study – No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study
• Study – Immunization uptake in younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder
• Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses
• Researchers have ditched the autism-vaccine hypothesis. Here’s what they think actually causes it.
• How much do autism parents really buy into the vaccine causation idea? Not so much.
• Internet survey shows high autism rate in unvaccinated children
• A vaccinated vs unvaccinated study
• Immunization uptake in younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder
• Juniper Russo was once a doubter but now a believer
• MMR vaccine and autism – once again, there is no association
• Stop attacking us and start listening to us: Autistic adults
• It is About Respect
• The Problems with Functioning Labels
• What is Wrong With Functioning Labels?
• How to Talk to an Autistic Adult
• 15 Things You Should Never Say To An Autistic
• Knowing Why: Adult-Diagnosed Autistic People on Life and Autism
• Autistic Parenting – Cherising Autistic People and Culture
• “So, do you work?”
• Finding Work
• Getting Hired
• Why to never tell someone ‘You will never work’
• Tips & Considerations for Autistic Job Seekers and Employers by Samantha Craft
• Calm the fuck down, there is no autism epidemic
• I’m a “highly functional” Autistic. It takes a lot of work.
• Autistic adults do not look like autistic children.
• I Have Autism And Hope To One Day Own A Bed And Breakfast
• Signs of Autism in Adults That May Have Been Missed as Children
• About That “Coming Avalanche” of Autistic Adults…
• Stop Isolating Autistic Adults and Calling It “Community-Based Housing”
• Don’t let your children grow up in a world where society devalues their lives.
• Autism and Suicidality: Conversations Between Researchers and Autistic People
• NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
• Robert Kennedy, why can’t you actually apologize? My kid’s brain is not gone.
• The Autism Epidemic Meme is Behind Almost All Autism Woo: A Call for Additional Research
• A Neurodiversity FAQ
• Autism Myths
• Who is your autism advocate?
• College students on the autism spectrum: Prevalence and associated problems
• Where Are All The Older Autistic People? Scotland, For Example
• Where are all the old people with autism? Most of them are dead. Can we stop denying their existence and start trying to make a difference?
• Autistic man dies
• Study: Adults with Autism…
• Don’t Write Me Off
• “We want respect”: adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities address respect in research.
• Rethinking Employment Opportunities for Adults with Autism
• Mayo Clinic to study adult prevalence and outcomes
• If you are using California data to claim an autism epidemic, you’re doing it wrong. Or:The great anti-epidemic of intellectual disability in California.
• The autism ‘epidemic’ no more
• Better dead than autistic
• Person First: An Evolution in Thinking
• The Genetics of Autism
• The Illusory Link Between Vaccinations and Autism

Last Updated on March 15, 2019