Death Over Autism: The History of the Modern Anti-Vaccination Movement
On February 13, 2025, the United States Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the 26th Secretary of Health and Human Services. Soon after he began his duties, he unleashed a slew of changes to HHS vaccine policy that largely departed from the vaccine-forward policies of earlier administrations and overall degraded vaccine confidence in the United States. Among these changes are the attempted shortening of the childhood vaccine recommendations list and the removal of the COVID-19 vaccine from the recommended vaccine list for children and pregnant women. Since before he took office, RFK Jr. and his controversial Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement have engaged in mixed messaging on vaccines as part of a larger campaign to combat chronic illness in the U.S., which the movement believes vaccines play a part in.
Additionally, the recent push for more organic and “natural” living, at least on social media, has grown to include a rejection of vaccines by some organic-living proponents. The growth of this movement has resulted in the spread of vaccine rejection and hesitancy to more and more Americans, in turn resulting in a growing number of unvaccinated children. This trend has now led to the return of a deadly disease that had previously been declared eliminated in the United States: measles. But to understand the recent surge in measles cases, we must trace the modern anti-vaccination movement back to its origins.
In the first half of the 20th century, advancements in health science surged, riding off the back of the Industrial Revolution and the world’s transition into the modern industrial era. Vaccine development also surged, with vaccines being developed for whooping cough, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio. By the end of the 1950s, many major historically deadly diseases could be combated with vaccines. Additionally, the mid-1940s to late 1960s saw the rise of the atomic and space ages, when science was thought to be able to provide every solution to every problem, and when the faith of the citizenry in science was firmly established, allowing the scientific community to exert influence over public policy. And with government patronage, especially after World War II, scientific advancement flourished. However, this public mindset would not endure for very long.
Following the Vietnam War, Watergate, and a host of other international and domestic incidents, the people’s faith in the government collapsed, the economy entered stagflation, and conservative movements sought to strip the scientific community of its power in government—characterizing the 1970s as a turbulent decade in American history. But at the same time, another breakthrough in the fight against deadly diseases was achieved with the formulation of the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine by Dr. Maurice Hilleman in 1971. Although rollout was largely a success, the pendulum swing observed in the 1970s would later return to haunt the efforts of the landmark vaccine.
On February 28, 1998, the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet published “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children,” authored by a group of scientists led by British then-gastroenterology researcher Andrew Wakefield. The study observed the cases of 12 children with developmental delays and gastrointestinal symptoms and hypothesized that the MMR vaccine all 12 children received triggered gut inflammation, allowing harmful proteins to enter the bloodstream, reach the brain, and damage brain development. Essentially, the study claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Although the study noted that its findings did not prove an association, Wakefield nevertheless staged a press conference and urged the British government to suspend the MMR vaccine’s administration. One may not have been able to guess it at the time, but this event would have a devastating impact not just on vaccines, but on health science and science as a whole.
The ramifications were immediate: between 1998 and 2003, UK MMR vaccination rates fell by roughly 12 percentage points nationwide (from ~90%) and triggered resurgences of measles across the UK and Ireland. But the real twist came in 2004, when investigative reporter Brian Deer published an exposé in the UK’s The Sunday Times uncovering evidence of fraud and misconduct. It was revealed that Wakefield accepted over £435,000 from a personal injury lawyer to build a case against vaccine manufacturers. Additionally, it revealed that his study methodology was fundamentally flawed, resulting in misleading findings and conclusions. Following the exposé, Wakefield’s co-authors withdrew their support for the claim linking the MMR vaccine to ASD. Additionally, scientists from all over the world published a slew of articles disproving Wakefield’s claims. Six years later, in 2010, The Lancet issued a retraction of Wakefield’s paper and the UK General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s license to practice medicine, disgracing him in the medical and scientific community. However, instead of admitting to his misconduct, Wakefield doubled down and launched into activism, defending his claims and his movement against the vaccine.
Yet despite the evidence against the link between the MMR vaccine and ASD, the damage had already been done. These events catalyzed the modern anti-vaccine movement and led to its explosion in popularity, sending echoes throughout the scientific and political world—the strongest echo being the intense resistance of the movement to the COVID-19 vaccine. Even today, some Americans still believe the MMR vaccine causes ASD, and more and more Americans are choosing to forgo all vaccines for their children, leading to a rise in cases of the diseases these children are unvaccinated against. If the nation continues on this trajectory, we risk losing our herd immunity. The deadly diseases that ravaged the nations of the past may return to ravage the nations of the present, putting all Americans at risk.
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