I can appreciate that this is an emotional issue for some people, but if we limit ourselves to evidence and science, it looks like we have yet another issue in which John McCain doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that “there’s strong evidence” that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. — a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.
McCain was responding to a question from the mother of a boy with autism, who asked about a recent story that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had issued a judgment in favor of an unnamed child whose family claimed regressive encephalopathy and symptoms of autism were caused by thimerosal.
“We’ve been waiting for years for kind of a responsible answer to this question, and are hoping that you can help us out there,” the woman said.
McCain said, per ABC News’ Bret Hovell, that “It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”
McCain said there’s “divided scientific opinion” on the matter, with “many on the other side that are credible scientists that are saying that’s not the cause of it.”
As is too often the case with the senator, his comments were ill-informed and misleading. He argued that there’s “strong evidence” linking thimerosal to autism rates. That’s false. He also insisted that there’s “divided scientific opinion” on the issue. At best, that’s misleading.
ABC News’ Jake Tapper, who’s making a comeback after a rough couple of weeks, ran a helpful report that cut through the spin and presented people with the evidence.
The established medical community is not as divided as McCain made it sound, however. Overwhelmingly the “credible scientists,” at least as the government and the medical establishment so ordain them, side against McCain’s view.
Moreover, those scientists and organizations fear that powerful people lending credence to the thimerosal theory could dissuade parents from getting their children immunized — which in their view would lead to a very real health crisis.
The Centers for Disease Control says “There is no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics says “No scientific data link thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines with any pediatric neurologic disorder, including autism.”
The Food and Drug Administration conducted a review in 1999 — the year thimerosal was ordered to be removed from most vaccines — and said that it “found no evidence of harm from the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, other than local hypersensitivity reactions.”
The Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee concluded “that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.”
And, on the other side, we have the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who believes there’s “strong evidence” that contradicts all of the available scientific research. Worse, McCain suggested that thimerosal is still in vaccines, though that does not appear to be the case.
This is not just a problem of another Republican leader who has little use for evidence and reason. As Kevin Drum noted, McCain’s confusion, when shared with large audiences, can have public-health consequences.
The odds of thimerosal being responsible for autism are now slim and none, and perpetuating this myth does real damage — both to the cause of autism research and to the millions of parents who hear this and decide to keep their children from receiving the normal complement of childhood vaccines.
So what happened here? Why did McCain perpetuate this rubbish without even a smidgen of doubt in his voice? Was he pandering to some constituency or other? Was he just making shit up because he didn’t really know anything about the subject? Was he misinformed by own staff about this? Unfortunately, my guess is that the correct answer here is “making shit up,” a quality that McCain has shown an unfortunate weakness for in the past.
I know reporters love the guy, but the reality is that John McCain tends to say whatever thought pops into his head, without much regard for whether it’s true or makes sense. As Mark Kleiman added, “The best one can say for McCain’s behavior is that it marks him as a fool, willing to flap his jaw about important topics based on ignorance.”
It’s not exactly an attractive quality in a presidential candidate.