The prevalence of autism has increased in the past few decades, contributing to a resurgence in fears of a link to a basic childhood health standard.
Over and over, the claimed link between childhood immunizations and autism has been debunked and disproven. Still, a single retracted and fraudulent study from the 1990s refuses to go away, and nearly 3 decades later, some parents continue to fear that preventative medicine will have negative effects on their child.
Now, a new study examines one specific version of the claim — the notion that the aluminum content in vaccines is the cause of genetic neurodivergence — and finds it untenable.
Massive Study Covers 2 Decades Of Nationwide Data
Denmark’s new study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, examines data in over 2.2 million children by reviewing health data from 1997 to 2020 (including children born through 2018).
Since changes have occurred in the childhood vaccine schedule over that period, there have been trackable changes in the amount of aluminum exposure each child receives, allowing for direct comparison with rates of various conditions, including autism, ADHD, allergies, and autoimmune disorders.
Proponents of the claim that vaccines cause autism point to the change over time. It’s true that the total number of childhood vaccines has changed over time, and that the prevalence of autism has changed, but that doesn’t prove causality, any more than the increased number of exoplanets seen by Earth telescopes from 1998 to 2020 does. All three changes only show that our information and technology has improved — in the case of autism, we’re better at identifying it, and we have a broader criteria for diagnosing.
The Danish study, therefore, had the potential to identify a real link, if one existed.
Good News: No Link Exists
Parents who are undecided about vaccines can rest easy after reviewing the results of this study. If increased aluminum exposure caused or increased the likelihood of autism, then increases in autism rates would correlate with the points at which aluminum exposure increased. Thus, the points at which new vaccines using aluminum to increase immune response were introduced would also be the points at which autism rates increased.
That’s not what the data shows.
In fact, the increase in vaccines that contain aluminum didn’t correlate with increases in any of the disorders and conditions examined in the study. The patterns (or lack thereof) strongly suggest that the increases in autism and ADHD are either random or attributable to other influences.
We recognize that the diagnostic criteria have undergone a significant change. Some presentations of symptoms that were previously not defined as autism are now included in autism spectrum disorder. We’ve also acknowledged that autism can present differently in girls than the stereotypical presentation that was defined by its most common symptoms in boys, and that it may present differently depending on factors such as when the gene is activated. Researchers are even proposing dividing the Autism spectrum into different subtypes based on symptoms and traits!
Why Add Aluminum To Vaccines, Anyway?
If there are concerns that aluminum and other additives to vaccines could increase the likelihood of an autism diagnosis, a reasonable question arises: why add aluminum to immunizations anyway? Would they work without it?
The CDC explains that aluminum is an adjuvant:
“Some vaccines that are made from weakened or killed germs contain naturally occurring adjuvants and help the body produce a strong protective immune response. However, most vaccines developed today include just small components of germs, such as their proteins, rather than the entire virus or bacteria. Adjuvants help the body to produce an immune response strong enough to protect the person from the disease he or she is being vaccinated against.”
In other words, adding aluminum to a vaccine means smaller doses of the germ itself. Aluminum, specifically, has been used as an adjuvant since the 1930s and is considered extremely safe.
You may also wonder how much aluminum, exactly, is in your baby’s vaccines, and how it compares to what they encounter elsewhere. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia shared this analysis:
“During the first six months of life, infants could receive about 4 milligrams of aluminum from vaccines. That’s not very much: A milligram is one-thousandth of a gram, and a gram is the weight of one-fifth of a teaspoon of water. During the same period, babies will also receive about 10 milligrams of aluminum in breast milk, about 40 milligrams in infant formula, or about 120 milligrams in soy-based formula.”