My short "conversation" with Alison Singer, Co-Founder and President of the Autism Science Foundation, on whether vaccines can cause autism
I asked "Do you want to see irrefutable evidence that vaccines cause autism?" She replied, "That evidence cannot exist. All the scientific studies show vaccines do not cause autism. Good luck to you."
Moments ago, I called Alison Singer on her private cell phone. She’s the President of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF). Here’s the ASF’s Twitter account.
The reason I called is that I learned that the beliefs of the ASF are based on solid science. I know that because it says so right on their website: “All of our statements are backed by evidence-based research and are meant to serve as a guide for families navigating complicated hot-button issues.” See? It’s all science-based! It doesn’t get any better than that!
After telling her who I was, I asked her, "Do you want to see irrefutable evidence that vaccines cause autism?"
For example, the calculations on the McDowell triplets show that it is impossible for this to have been a “coincidence.” All I need is a single “black swan” sighting to prove that black swans do exist. And I have dozens of black swan sightings at my disposal. It is impossible to explain these away. Nobody has ever been able to do that. Nobody even wants to try.
Conversely, you can never prove the null hypothesis, i.e., you can never “prove” that vaccines cannot cause autism. You can only argue that all the experiments you’ve done to date haven’t found a signal, e.g., because the researchers were instructed to destroy the evidence that goes against the narrative (like the CDC told CDC scientist William Thompson to do).
What’s remarkable is that they haven’t done an experiment specifically designed to actually detect the strongest signal: an experiment where the researchers investigated the time between the nearest vaccine and the first telltale signs of autism. Such an experiment would INSTANTLY reveal causality, but nobody wants to do such a study (for some reason! But I did this research and the results were devastating and cannot be explained away proving conclusively that vaccines cause autism.
So I was expecting a warm welcome since true scientists are always open to challenge and new evidence.
So her response was surprising to me: “"That evidence cannot exist. All the scientific studies show vaccines do not cause autism. Good luck to you."
So there you go.
This is why these people believe what they believe. They think “scientific consensus” is impossible to overturn and they have no interest in hearing otherwise.
In fact, it doesn’t matter to her if all future studies show that vaccines cause autism because they would all be fraudulent in her mind.
This is the kind of mindset we are dealing with here.
And what is deeply troubling is the name of her organization: the Autism SCIENCE foundation.
Whoa.
Science is all about always being open to new data.
Perhaps they should change the name of their organization to the “Autism Religious Foundation” or something like that. I think that would be more appropriate.
Summary
It’s tragic that people who are raising money for autism research and who claim they follow the science are so dogmatic in their beliefs and unwilling to even consider the possibility that they got it wrong.
That is what science is all about… a constant, never ending search for truth and the humility to realize that you may have gotten it completely wrong.
This is why I am constantly asking my followers, “If you have any counter-examples showing I got it wrong, I’d love to see them.”
By contrast, Alison Singer knows she is right and she has no interest in anyone with evidence to the contrary. She just doesn’t want to hear it. She is not a scientist.
They are paid private gatekeepers. Diabetes, cancer research are all foundations set up by Big Harma to keep you asking all the wrong questions.
I won't give them a dime until they add vaccines to their list - which they will never do.
Keep pushing Steve!
Research Operation Trust.
Hi Steve, I am a big fan of your work, including your recent statistical analysis of the time interval, which I believe strongly suggests you are in the right. I was wondering if you would be able to fund an actual scientific study to conclusively prove (or disprove) this link? Perhaps a peer-reviewed study would accomplish changing the minds of some people, where simple twitter polls cannot.
All the best.