The Antivax-movement is a symptom of a much serious problem

“I remained silent for too long, and today, I stand up for those who were silenced before me. For those who cannot speak like my son. For those who love without words. For those who give a hug asking nothing in return.”

 For many years, I have pondered how to discuss the eugenic roots underlying the myth behind the "vaccines cause autism" case. I write from a position of privilege as a male, tenured university professor residing in Canada. I also live with a "hidden" disability (autism), which is a form of privilege within the disability community. I am also a parent of a non-verbal teenager who has both autism and Down syndrome, who, thanks to the sacrifice and love of my wife has bloomed in our homeschooling system.

My experiences at the intersection of parenting a child with disabilities and being a disabled scientist myself, I believe, give me a unique perspective on the "vaccines cause autism" topic. For those seeking scientific evidence about vaccine safety, I encourage you to read a recent article (https://bit.ly/42RKmgF) and consult additional online resources (https://bit.ly/3EpMlj7).

Let me be clear: I do not romanticize having a disability or the experience of being a parent to a disabled child. My reflections stem from years of watching the growing aggressiveness in societal attitudes toward persons with disabilities, particularly in discussions surrounding the so-called autism epidemic. For those open to hearing my viewpoint, I have crafted a narrative using storytelling and Western knowledge/history to create a framework that makes you reflect on your biases and systems of belief.

PART 1 - THE ILLUSION OF INCLUSION: I have taught accessibility in biomedical sciences for some time, with class sizes ranging from twenty to hundreds of learners. I always begin my lecture on disability and ableism by disclosing my own privileges and disabilities, serving as a grounding exercise for everyone in the classroom. I asked how many students had classmates with disabilities, and at least 90% of the class members typically raised their hands. Next, I inquired how many remembered the first and last names of their disabled classmates, and fewer than a third of those who initially raised their hands kept them up. Finally, I ask, "How many of you remain in contact with that classmate?" I am fortunate in a class of 100 if 1 or 2 respond positively.

I then ask my learners why they think they ultimately grew apart from their disabled peers. Many respond, "They were slower, they only attended parts of our classes, or we did not know how to interact with them." Following this, I share a statistic that demonstrates that people with disabilities remain underrepresented in science and medicine, and they graduated at a much lower rate than their non-disabled peers (https://bit.ly/42DDBOc). I explain that an educational system relying on special education or accommodations to "inclusively" educate all learners is fundamentally flawed.

As the class becomes more engaged in discussion, I ask those willing to share, "How many of you want to have children?" Among those who express a desire to have kids, I follow up with, "If you could choose, would you want to have a disabled child?" In my years of teaching, I have never received a "yes" in response to that question. This question highlights a troubling aspect of societal beliefs: being born with a disability is often seen as making someone "undesirable." I follow the discussion with a much more provocative question “if you were a parent, and your non-disabled child acquires a disability (accident or medical condition), would you put that child in an institution?” At unison, the classroom says “NO.” I follow this point by making them aware of the dichotomy around the fact that in some cases “disabilities” are to be accepted, but only if the individual was born non-disabled.

In fact, the so commonly untold North America’s history, up to very recent years, for persons with disabilities resembles more of a horror-dystopian novel, including forced sterilization for the so called “feebleminded,” scales of “idiocy,” and laws that sought an “ultimate” solution for the disabled. In Canada, the project Eugenics Archive contains one of the most complete timelines that unequivocally illustrates the extent to what Eugenic practices helped to shape modern medicine and sciences (https://www.eugenicsarchive.ca/). Thus, it is not surprising to me to see the biases embedded in higher education students; just like fish who do not realize that water is around them in the vastness of the oceans.

PART 2 - THE TRAGEDY OF BEING DISABLED: Very recently, I heard from the mouth of one of the most influential healthcare leaders in the G7 articulating on the tragedy of parenting a child with autism. The picture painted by that individual perpetuates the portrayal of being disabled as a tragedy; something that we must understand why it happened, so it can be prevented. History has some interesting lessons that we tend to overlook. As a person with autism, when I heard the now “infame” rant about vaccines and autism, my mind travelled to one of the darkest passages in modern history, the one that took place in Nazi Germany, with project T-4. A project conceived to eradicate the non-fit to benefit the productive members of society. Project T-4 exterminated at least 250,000 disabled persons, including children, and served as a training platform for what was to become known as the Holocaust (https://bit.ly/445ywkh). If we were to define who is and who is not a productive member of our society based on their ability to pay taxes, we are simply monetizing the “values” of our society. This is ultimately the problem with our economic model, where values are equated to value, and sometimes, the latter becomes the most important of the two. I wish the healthcare leader could have spoken about improving support for families that need assistance and additional care. Of creating new opportunities for persons with disabilities, so they can access education, find stable jobs, and prevent homelessness. I wish the healthcare leader had articulated on the need of bringing compassion and embracing diversity as a transformative component of the process. I am not a Catholic, but the words shared years ago by late Pope Francis in the Vatican (https://bit.ly/4jA1Y72) when meeting with policymakers, businesspeople, academics, and other leaders during lunch, remind us of the need to do things differently. The words were sharp and honest, as it was the heart of Pope Francis:

“Our meal will be accompanied by wine. Now, wine is many things. It has a bouquet, colour and richness of taste that all complement the food. It has alcohol that can enliven the mind. Wine enriches all our senses. At the end of our feast, we will have grappa. Grappa is one thing: alcohol. Grappa is wine distilled.

Humanity is many things – passionate, curious, rational, altruistic, creative, self-interested. But the market is one thing: self-interest. The market is humanity distilled.

Your job is to turn the grappa back into wine, to turn the market back into humanity. This isn’t theology. This is reality. This is the truth.”

If you finished reading this, and cannot help but feel a sense of uneasiness, I have achieved my goal. While speaking from my privileged position, I also do not blame the parents who, like me, live in a system that sells you the illusion of inclusion, which is nothing more than that. However, trying to find the root causes of why some people “happen to have autism” takes space away from much more critical discussions, such as creating foundational structures to move away from archetypical accommodations to real accessible ecosystems. Sometimes I wonder that if the discussion around the origin of autism will cease the day prenatal screenings able to determine the “risk level” of autism are made available. If this happens, as it most likely will, my theory that the issue with the vaccines was never really the problem, but rather a symptom.