What the MAHA Draft Teaches Us About “Fixing” a Made-Up Autism-Vaccine “Problem"
- David Ruttenberg
- Aug 21
- 3 min read
<5 minute read
Copyright © 2018-2025 Dr David P Ruttenberg. All rights reserved.
The leaked Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy—crafted by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Trump White House—offers a master class in how political playbooks recycle discredited science to sell an invented crisis. Its sections on “vaccine injury” and “root causes of autism” revive the long-debunked claim that childhood shots spark neurodevelopmental conditions, even as decades of rigorous studies say otherwise.[1][2]
Below are four takeaways communicators, advocates, and clinicians can use when confronting the latest wave of autism-and-vaccine misinformation.
1. Manufactured Problems Yield Made Up “Solutions”
Lesson: When leaders frame autism as an epidemic caused by vaccines, every policy lever looks like a cure: new “injury” databases, revamped schedules, or placebo trials that already exist in safer forms.
Why it matters for autism & vaccines
The draft orders NIH and CMS to launch fresh vaccine-injury studies, implying current surveillance misses hidden harms.[3]
It promises to “ensure America has the best childhood vaccine schedule,” a hedge that suggests something is dangerously wrong with the current one.[1]
Such language shifts attention—and funding—away from urgently needed supports (communication aids, home-based services) toward chasing a phantom and made up culprit.
2. “Radical Transparency” Can Be Code for Re-Litigating Settled Science
Lesson: Calls for more “robust” debate sound reasonable until you notice the evidence bar moves only for one side.
Why it matters
Kennedy portrays existing oversight as opaque, even though post-licensure monitoring (VAERS, VSD) already tracks safety in real time.[4]
Demanding endless “gold-standard” trials ignores hundreds of properly controlled studies showing no autism link; the goalpost simply shifts each time new data emerge.[5]
Endless audits erode public confidence, not because data are lacking, but because officials refuse to accept them.
3. Deregulation + Voluntary Industry Action = Delayed Accountability
Lesson: The draft soft-pedals pesticides and ultra-processed foods, opting for voluntary commitments while singling out vaccines for stricter scrutiny. The imbalance reveals a political calculus: target the flashpoint issue that rallies a base, leave powerful lobbies largely untouched.[6][1]
Why it matters
Autism becomes the convenient evidence-lite villain for complex chronic issues—obesity, ADHD, immune dysfunction—letting food and chemical industries off the hook.[7]
Public health priorities skew toward the loudest conspiratorial narratives rather than the strongest epidemiological signals.
4. Stoking Fear of Autism Endangers Autistic People
Lesson: Framing autism as a catastrophe legitimizes harmful “cures,” stigmatizes neurodivergent lives, and—ironically—reduces vaccination, resurrecting diseases that hit disabled communities hardest.[8][9]
Action steps
Center autistic voices. Autistic advocates note that fewer vaccines would mean more measles, which disproportionately harms immunocompromised and congregate-living populations.[8]
Reclaim the narrative. Highlight that autism prevalence shifts largely reflect better detection, not a biological surge, and that inclusive supports—not elimination—improve quality of life.
Expose the trade-offs. Each dollar spent on phantom vaccine research is a dollar not spent on proven services such as speech therapy or community housing.
Practical Calls-to-Action for Readers
1. Educate friends and family: share plain-language summaries of landmark studies debunking the autism-vaccine myth (e.g., Taylor et al., 2014 meta-analysis).
2. Advocate for evidence-based funding: urge lawmakers to invest in autistic supports, not redundant “injury” probes.
3. Model inclusive language: describe autism as a neurotype, not a tragedy, to defang fear-based rhetoric.
4. Vaccinate on schedule: protecting community immunity also protects autistic individuals who may have co-occurring medical vulnerabilities.
About the Author:
Dr David Ruttenberg PhD, FRSA, FIoHE, AFHEA is a neuroscientist, autism advocate, and Fulbright Specialist Awardee dedicated to advancing ethical artificial intelligence, neurodiversity accommodation, and transparent science communication. With a background spanning music production to cutting-edge wearable technology, Dr Ruttenberg combines science and compassion to empower individuals and communities to thrive. Inspired daily by their brilliant autistic daughter and family, Dr Ruttenberg strives to break barriers and foster a more inclusive, understanding world.
[4] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/anti-science/new-make-america-healthy-again-report-takes-aim-vaccines
[8] https://autisticadvocacy.org/2025/04/trump-and-kennedy-spouting-dangerous-autism-misinformation/