Sorry, RFK Jr.! Study Shows COVID In Pregnancy Associated With Higher Rates Of Autism
What will the anti-vaxxers do?!?
Earlier this year, despite the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence anywhere showing that COVID vaccines are harmful to pregnant women or their children, and despite his confirmation hearing promises to not make it more difficult for anyone to get a vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the CDC would no longer recommend them to these populations.
“Bottom line,” he tweeted, “It’s common sense and it’s good science.”
Except for how, as per every medical association on earth, it was neither of those things.
There is, after all, a reason why doctors go to medical school instead of just treating people based on “vibes” or what they consider to be their own common sense. There was a time when this was the case, and it was, coincidentally, also a time during which the medical professionals of the day determined that women became “hysterical” because their wombs were floating around in their bodies. They attempted to solve this problem by putting bad smells near their noses and good smells near their lady parts so that the uterus would float back to its natural position in the body.
In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax, and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or the spleen, and it likewise is subject to prolapsus downwards, and in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights also in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal. — Aretaeus of Cappadocia, captain-in-charge of common-sense diagnoses.
The uterus, it would later turn out, was nothing like that at all, and that, perhaps, the reason women were “hysterical” was because they were surrounded by idiots.
Now there is another discovery that may prove very awkward for Team Common Sense.
A study published last week in Obstetrics & Gynecology by a research group from Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital may very well break RFK Jr.’s brain, along with the brains of COVID “skeptics” and anti-vaxxers (most of whom tend to be the exact kind of scientifically illiterate) across the land. Why? Because it showed that there appears to be a strong association between COVID-19 infections in pregnant women and higher rates of autism and other neurodevelopmental issues.
It is literally the opposite of everything they have ever believed.
The researchers found that, of 861 individuals who had COVID-19 infections while pregnant, 140 of their children — or 16.3 percent — were diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental issue by three years old. For comparison, only 1,680 of the 17,263 — or 9.7 percent — of children who were not exposed to a COVID-19 infection in the womb were diagnosed with one. This would mean that children exposed to COVID-19 infections in utero were nearly twice as likely to develop such an issue than those who were not.
Thus, they determined that “[e]xposure to maternal severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in utero was associated with greater odds of a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by age 3 years; risk was highest among male offspring and after third-trimester infection.”
It was possible to do the study this way in the beginning of the pandemic, without being unethical, because the vast majority of those they studied had not yet even had the opportunity to get the vaccine.
Does this mean that COVID-19 definitively “causes” autism? No, but there is certainly a far stronger association between the two than, for say, vaccines or Tylenol as a cause. Given that we know there are other serious dangers related to getting COVID while pregnant — pregnant people are far more likely to be hospitalized with an infection, more likely to get long COVID, more likely to have stillbirths, preterm births, blood clots, kidney damage, damage to the placenta and more — it sure seems like a far better idea for expectant mothers to get vaccinated than not.
The researchers explained that the reason they looked at this in the first place is that there has long been an association between similar infections during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric issues:
A substantial body of evidence links maternal infection during pregnancy to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. Large national registry studies have reported increased risks of neuropsychiatric disease such as autism spectrum disorder, cognitive delay, schizophrenia, and mood disorders after in utero exposure to maternal infections. For example, a Swedish study of 2.3 million births found a 30% increase in risk for autism spectrum disorder among the offspring of women hospitalized with an infection during pregnancy, and a subsequent analysis of 1.8 million births identified a 79% increase in risk for autism spectrum disorder and a 24% increase in risk of major depression among offspring exposed to any maternal infection in pregnancy, whether hospitalized or not. Relevant to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is only rarely vertically transmitted, adverse offspring neurodevelopmental effects from maternal viral infection can occur even without vertical transmission, as has been observed with influenza.
Weirdly, you don’t hear too much about this from the “vaccines cause autism!” crowd.
This study obviously poses quite a dilemma for RFK Jr and others who share his very stupid and poorly thought-out ideas. What happens when “good science” conflicts with their “common sense?” Which do they care about more? Preventing autism or just preventing people from getting vaccinated?
Of course, for it to pose any kind of dilemma, they’d have to actually know about and acknowledge the study, which I think we can safely assume they will not.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
“ perhaps, the reason women were “hysterical” was because they were surrounded by idiots.”
And still, to this day…
What will the anti-vaxxers do?
Ignore the science, same as always.