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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

I am an autism researcher. While we cannot say 'vaccines never cause autism' we can say with confidence 'Other potential causes of autism have much better theoretical foundations, empirical evidence, prevalence, and effect sizes. With limited research budgets, we have better research targets to pursue first before further investigating vaccines."

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This is exactly why the whole "vaccine causes autism" got started. We need to improve science literacy before we could say things like that to the general public.

When a layperson hears this, they'll think that there's a small but possible chance that vaccines do cause autism; when what the scientist means to say is that "it's highly unlikely that vaccines cause autism."

I think it’s okay to mean what you say. Part of improving literacy is also respecting the intelligence of your audience and not talking down to them. Treating everyone like buffoons makes people act like them - treating them as beings capable of thought and reason tends to show the better side.

I find this argument hard to agree with. We are seeing unprecedented levels of buffoonery in many governments of the world and people enthusiastically agreeing with (objectively) idiots. Before anyone that does not know how to understand a statement as we are talking about, they will understand it the wrong way, tell everyone they know, create social media content and form organizations that oppose vaccines. I would say that this is more likely to happen many times over than them actually learning how to understand a statement like OPs properly. So as sad as it is, I think you are wrong.

I can understand that this approach seems like the easy quick solution, but the problem is much deeper than that. It's more about a weaponization of language by those who know what they're doing. Getting into a language fight isn't worthless, but doesn't actually resolve the issue, just escalates it.

What's more important IMHO, is raising the general understanding of how this science works and not falling into the trap of feeling like we have to debate this buffoonery on the same level. We're so worried about being called "elites" or whatever that we fight on their terms instead of just straight up calling it out as stupid and manipulative and giving it no more time than that.

I'd say being realistic about the intelligence of your audience. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people".

I got sent some looping tik tok anti vax thing with a pretty woman saying sincerely vax bad, with no sources and links. The people influenced by that are not going to look up the papers in Nature.

So what you're saying is vaccines might cause autism?

;-)

It's not the reason why this conspiracy got started. It got started by a fraudulent pseudoscientific paper with financial ties to it. We shouldn't be reducing human intelligence and ability to process information to the "wet streets cause rain" level. I know it's easier said than done though. When a scientist claims that "highly unlikely that vaccines cause autism", it still leaves the same room for doubt as when they say "it is very likely that vaccines do not cause autism".

The real issue isn't scientific caution. It's that the misinformation campaigns exploit any uncertainty, no matter how small. The solution isn't dumbing down science communication, but being clear about what the evidence actually shows.

That’s not a helpful way to communicate with the public.

Instead you should follow the standards we hold for everyday occurrences, which is if there’s no compelling evidence, it’s safe to say it doesn’t happen.

"which is if there’s no compelling evidence, it’s safe to say it doesn’t happen."

I call BS.

Until there was compelling evidence that antidepressants cause suicidal ideation it's safe to say it doesn't

Until there was compelling evidence that contaminated water causes cholera it's safe to say it doesn't

Until there was compelling evidence that dirty hands cause maternal death it's safe to say it doesn't

Until there was compelling evidence that lack of sunlight causes neo-natal jaundice it's safe to say it doesn't

These examples span centuries, including the 21st, that were vigorously rejected by experts

Yeah man, if you went around telling people not to take their meds because someone suspected jt might cause suicidal ideation, you’d end up causing far more harm to all the unmedicated people.

Also, the internet makes this sort of well-intentioned deception both impossible and counter-productive.

What is your point? You can't suspect things without evidence or you'd never be able to leave your house afraid of everything.

would you mind answering a couple questions? I'm very curiuous:

Have autism rates increased recently (last few decades)?

If so, what are the best theories for why?

The book “Neurotribes” goes into this in great detail. The number of diagnoses have increased, primarily due to a widening of the criteria used to diagnose autism as the DSM [1] has gone from version 3 to 5. In the early days of autism research, it used to be necessary to meet multiple criteria (i.e. profound social withdrawal, language peculiarities such as echolalia, resistance to change, repetitive behaviors, etc., all occurring in very early childhood). Today, it’s possible to receive a diagnosis in adulthood, and to do so while meeting criteria across fewer of the above domains.

This widening has multiple causes, not the least of which was an attempt to help parents of autistic children access parenting resources they otherwise couldn’t without a diagnosis in-hand.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_M...

> widening of the criteria used to diagnose

Seeing some autism influencers on social media, I'm reminded that every childhood friend I ever had was autistic.

The most recent episode of the podcast Science Vs explored this in detail: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/autism-the-real-reason...

The rise in autism rates (5x over the last 25 years) is almost entirely explained by changes in how autism is defined, diagnosed, and detected. Not by an actual surge in underlying cases or any specific environmental trigger like vaccines, air pollution, heavy metals, plastics, or screen time.

I just don't believe that based purely on my personal experience. I've been around many many people and in the last 15-20 years the amount of people with autism has exploded. It was very rare 30 years ago in my area, the occasional led exposure here, farm chemicals there... But now it's seemingly every 10th house that has someone that is nonverbal.

I'm all for papers and science but only if it matches the real world.

One of the largest reasons is probably we're just looking more. It's a relatively new diagnosis, just 50 years ago it'd just be "oh yeah Uncle Joe is a little weird he only eats hotdogs and knows everything ever about trains".

There are severe cases of non verbal children etc

I'm not 100% sure what you're saying. Yes there are obvious cases like but those instances also used to just get called other things before we figured out autism as a distinct disease and it became widespread knowledge. There's no field in the data that gives us (for lack of a better term) the level of autism for people getting that diagnosis over time and we're recognizing more and more things as being on the spectrum of autism as time goes on which really just feeds back into the "there's more because we're finding/labelling more people as autistic" hypothesis.

Yes, and 50 years ago, those high-support-needs children would be the only people diagnosed as autistic, unlike today.

Ah.. like Joe Rogan, you're "just asking questions".

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