Question

Vaccines don't cause autism; rather, autism is a result of vaccines through a biological process.

Answer 1

There is some truth to this statement but also some falseness to it. The source provided in this original post is simply just a social media post, there is no evidence that is backed up in it nor any sources. However, I did some deep diving and found facts and evidence myself.

“Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD. The National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as Institute of Medicine, reviewed the safety of 8 vaccines to children and adults. The review found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe.” CDC. This information shows the statement above “Vaccines don't cause autism” to be true, but this leaves the other half of the statement unanswered. "Rather, autism is a result of vaccines through a biological process.” So, I did some more digging onto the social media post provided and the post mentioned demyelination.

What is demyelination? Well my source says “A demyelinating disease is any condition that causes damage to the protective covering that surrounds nerve fibers. This covering is called the myelin sheath. In the central nervous system, the myelin sheath protects nerves in the brain, spinal cord and nerves leading to the eyes, known as optic nerves.” Mayo Clinic. To find the link between demyelination and autism in specific is where the claim begins to become loose and hard to prove correct,  I found two studies in which scientists completed studies to try and find the link between vaccines and demyelination.

One study concluded that “This systematic review identified few cases of CNS demyelination following all types of approved COVID-19 vaccines so far.” Ismail II. This means that there were cases of demyelination as a result of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, not that demyelination causes autism. The other study found that "it describes age-dependent degeneration of Purkinje neurons, with demyelination of central tract as well as activation of microglia, and discusses the implications of these changes for neuro-behavioral phenotypes. The described changes provide new indications for the putative mechanisms underlying cerebellar impairments with their age-related onset, which may contribute to the pathobiology of autism, epilepsy, and related disorders.” Kútna, O'Leary, Hoschl, Ovsepian. This means that mTORC1 in large quantities will cause gradual damage and or increased inflammation in the cerebellum. This can lead to the problems that could help explain autism-like behaviors but doesn’t necessarily say that demyelination is the cause of autism. 

There are links to vaccines causing demyelination but not direct links to demyelination to autism, just damage to the cerebellum.

file:///Users/nialahpalmer/Downloads/News%20Detective%20Week%203.pdf

Comments

I'm not able to open your link. Is it a source link?

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Yes it’s a PDF of the writing above and my works cited, maybe try to copy and paste the whole thing into your browser?

Answer 2

This claim is false as vaccines do not cause autism through a biological process. 

Some people believe that vaccines cause biological damage resulting in autism, especially after an issue coming to the surface in 1998 about the MMR vaccine. In 1971, the FDA administered this vaccine and had been deemed safe, but in 98, a paper came out discussing 12 children who were diagnosed with autism after receiving this vaccine. However, these 12 children’s diagnosis can’t be linked to autism successfully, due to the fact that there was no control group and that this paper was “cherry picking” their answers. Additionally when vaccines are given out, children are “the age when… they regress into autism” so there will ultimately be a “temporal relationship; by chance alone, some children would develop autism after vaccination”

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-evidence-on-vaccines-and-autism 

The CDC states that there is no correlation to vaccines and autism. The CDC has performed 9 different studies since 2003, all reporting no correlation between autism and vaccines. In one study, they looked at a selection of diverse children ranging from 18 months to 36 months, finding that there were no biological processes that changed during this time. There were children diagnosed with autism, but this is around the normal time when symptoms start to arise and be noticed, so the authors report that this is the cause of those results. 

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html 

It is also argued that the combinations of vaccines cause changes in biological processes, but the national library of medicine proves that to be incorrect. Vaccines do not harm the immune system or weaken how the body works and “is not an immune-mediated disease”. Testing this through studies directly also raises ethical concerns, so it cannot be fully explored. This source concludes that “twenty epidemiologic studies have shown that neither thimerosal nor MMR vaccine causes autism”.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2908388/ 

This claim is incorrect since autism is proven to not be a result of vaccines through a biological process.

Answer 3

This claim is false and misleading. To begin with, social media is not a reliable resource and there seems to be no verified scientific evidence backing this claim up - the user on Bluesky who has posted this has has provided no credible evidence or references to support their claim, which raises serious doubts about its validity. Additionally, Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health reports that extensive research and multiple large-scale studies have found no connection whatsoever between vaccination and autism diagnoses (Johns Hopkins, 2025). Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has conducted and reviewed numerous scientific investigations, all of which confirm that vaccines do not cause autism. The CDC emphasizes that vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing infectious diseases (CDC, 2025). Finally, the NLM states that studies have shown that neither thimerosal nor MMR vaccine causes autism and do not affect the immune system. (NLM, 2010) Therefore, this claim is incorrect and blindly relying on misleading social media posts instead of reputable studies and articles can ultimately endanger public health.