Autistic People Say Anti-Vax Misinformation Is Only Making Matters Worse
“I would like people to be aware that vaccines don’t cause autism, because they don’t,” Gross said. “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.”
“If there's some villainous reason why people are like me, people don't have to acknowledge that autism is a natural, inherent variation of human neurology; that it's a form of diversity in the way that gender and ethnicity are,” she told BuzzFeed News.
Stigmas can also be reinforced by the same scientists and public health officials who are trying to quell misinformation, Gross added. Too often, experts focus on the deficits of autism or describe it as an epidemic, which only stokes people’s fears, she said. After her son’s diagnosis with autism in 2003, she said she fell for it. But after learning about the dangers of some purported autism treatments, she began turning a critical eye to available information and meeting autistic adults of varying abilities.
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