Authentic? Anecdotal perhaps, but not necessarily proven to be true. I notice that Trump likes to tell these anecdotal stories but never with any details to back them up.
The vaccine/autism link has been thoroughly debunked and there is no medical/scientific evidence that spacing out vaccinations over time is preferable to the current schedule and in fact spacing out important vaccinations put children at greater risk of contracting preventable and sometimes debilitating and deadly diseases.
"You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump— I mean, it looks just like it is meant for a horse, not for a child, and we had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2-years old, beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic."- Donald Trump
First of all correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
Next - is Trump lying in saying that the 2 year old child of one of his employees got a “tremendous fever” a week after getting a vaccination and is now autistic? Don’t know. But a reaction to a vaccination tends to happen in the 1st 24 to 48 hours, although sometimes within 5-12 days. Also it should be noted that children sometimes get high fevers for many reasons and it could have nothing to do with the vaccination (and I note Trump doesn’t mention what vaccine or combination vaccine was given to this employee’s “beautiful” 2 year old child – and with Trump – people are always either “beautiful” or “ugly”, what difference does the child’s appearance have to do with it and I doubt very much Trump ever saw this kid in person – just saying). And FWIW, the child could have gotten sick from any number of viruses not covered by any vaccine and sometimes kids at that age will suddenly get a high fever for no known reason and with no other symptoms and be perfectly fine the next day. Some kids and adults do spike a fever after getting some vaccinations, but again, these are typically mild and only last a day or two with in most cases, with no lasting effects.
Also autism doesn’t, contrary to what the anti-vax people say, suddenly display overnight or come out of nowhere, rather subtitle behavioral clues are seen developing over time although some parents refuse to recognize that their child is anything less than perfect and ignore them. OTOH, some parents see every little thing as a sign of a problem where none exists and demand a diagnosis like being on the “autism spectrum” or having ADHD that confirms their suspicions where their child’s behaviors and personality traits could well be perfectly normal. IMO and observations, some parents use this as an excuse for not actually parenting and disciplining their child’s bad behaviors in favor of making excuses for it and demanding special accommodations for them.
It is also worth mentioning that the age when most children start displaying signs of “autism” or on the “autism spectrum” or being diagnosed with ADHD, is at the very same age range when they are getting vaccinated but again, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. The 2 to 3 age range is also the age range when kids start testing their boundaries and having temper tantrums or suddenly become picky eaters, but no one says (for the most part) that vaccines cause this.
Also it is unusual and somewhat controversial to get a definitive diagnosis of autism before the age of 3 years old but since the “autism spectrum” has been so much expanded, much like as with ADHD diagnosis, it is no wonder that so many kids are being diagnosed (and often misdiagnosed) with either; diagnosed sometimes for displaying rather normal behaviors, especially in the case of boys or even high intelligence of either gender.
I’ve seen this in my own family. My niece and her husband have triplets girls; the girls were born 3 months pre-mature and as with a lot of premies and especially with multiples, they lagged somewhat behind in some of their development milestones – in motor skills (were late to crawl and walk) and speech and language skills compared to full term babies of their same age.
They were eligible for getting help from an “Early Intervention” program and had speech and physical therapists come to their home several times a week to work with the girls. For the most part, the therapy was positive but one of the therapists told my niece and her husband that one of the triplets – Lilly, at only 12 months old, was probably “autistic” and or had ADHD. And what did she base this diagnosis on? Well Lilly didn’t like getting bullied by her other triplet sisters, having her toys taken away by them and such, so rather than confronting them and doing what the other two did, like hitting and biting and crying when they didn’t get their way (and yes, kids of that age can act animals if you don’t intervene and teach them right from wrong, but sometimes parents also have to let them fight it out and work it out on their own).
So Lilly rather than fighting, would just take some toys and go off by herself to a far corner and quiet side of the room, far away from her sisters and play by herself. But what Lilly did was to also gather toys of the same type, like all the animal toys or toys of the same or similar color or shape, building blocks and Legos for instance and she would sort and arrange them by size, color, shape, etc. over and over again – she could happily occupy herself for hours on end doing this. One of the therapists saw Lilly’s behaviors and interest in arranging things of the same type, shape or color as being an early sign of autism or on the “autism spectrum” – “patterning” as she called of ADHC, it was according to her, a very ‘bad sign”, and she wanted to do additional therapy with her and refer her to a doctor specializing in autism and ADHD.
But what Lilly was doing actually was a sign of high intelligence IMO and her parents agreed and didn’t’ want her to be stigmatized with a false diagnoses and her creativity stifled or medicated away as a result. And she wasn’t anti-social as she would play with her sisters and would share toys with them as I and her parents observed, but she just didn’t have the patience for them when they wouldn’t play nice with her and would much rather go play by herself when they wouldn’t play nice.
Today Lilly is in the 2nd grade and is doing extremely well in school especially in math. Lilly does have her own personality however; she has a strong personality and doesn’t put up with other kids bullying her or her sisters, and she loves Legos for instance and creates some really amazing and very complex things with them, she’s also a bit of a tomboy” compared to her triplet sisters, she is really good at running and in playing sports and she likes toy cars and playing with Nerf guns with her older brother rather than playing with dolls and she has said recently that she wants to be an engineer or an architect when she grows up. And good for her!
Finally the statement that “and you pump— I mean, it looks just like it is meant for a horse” is totally false and complete BS. The size of the needle given and the amount of fluid in a single dose vaccine vs. a combination vaccine are totally indistinguishable.
Love that story about Lilly and glad your family didn’t listen to the therapist’s advice! As I read I kept thinking those are the signs of a very smart child and hoped her parents hadn’t medicated her! (Although I am not against medication for things like ADHD in all cases.)