Medicin and Health – Super Facts

Super fact 61 : An overwhelming body of scientific evidence has proven that vaccines do not cause autism. In addition, research shows that Tylenol (acetaminophen) is not a likely cause of autism.

Autism is a complex disorder caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. It is estimated that approximately 80-90% of the risk for autism is genetic. There are other factors that also increase the risk for autism such as advanced parental age, birth complications, and prenatal exposure to certain chemicals or infections. However, despite what many people believe, or have heard, vaccines (and Tylenol) is not one of them.

vaccinating dog on white background, hiding covering eye | Vaccines do not cause Autism — No dog has ever gotten autism from a vaccine. The same is true for humans. Well, dogs don’t get autism in the first place. Shutterstock Asset id: 1676509894 by Vince Scherer

The belief that vaccines cause autism originated primarily from a single, fraudulent 1998 study published by Andrew Wakefield. The study falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism in 12 children. Since then, dozens of high-quality scientific studies, involving millions of children across multiple countries, have found no link between vaccines and autism. One Danish study involved 657,000 children. Leading global health organizations such as CDC, WHO, the American Academy of Pediatrics AAP, have affirmed this conclusion. You can read more about it here, and here, and here. In general, routine vaccines has been shown to be safe.

Some studies have shown minor associations between acetaminophen and autism, but association, or correlation, is not causality. Tylenol is often used more often in challenging pregnancies. Research shows no causal link between Tylenol and autism. This is what Nature, a prestigious, leading weekly scientific journal that publishes peer-reviewed research papers, says. You can read more here, here, and here.

If you focus on the medical research and what reputable medical associations say as opposed to social media memes, talk show hosts, and politicians say, it is obvious that this super fact is true. It is obviously important and yet a lot of people refuse to accept it, including a lot of people I personally know. That makes it a super fact. It is a true and important fact that is surprising or hard to accept for many people.

I try to avoid politics as much as possible in this blog but perhaps this post may seem political to some, but it really isn’t. It’s the government agencies, politicians, political think tanks and individuals who reject scientific evidence that does not support their agendas who are being overly political. Just presenting the facts does not make you political. Just like thermometers don’t have political parties (global warming) neither do statistical tools, DNA or viruses.

What about the Autism Epidemic?

It is true that autism diagnoses have increased by about 300% over the last 20 years. There are two main reasons for this increase. First, the definition of autism spectrum disorder has been broadened. Second, public health programs have increased screening that look for signs of autism at wellness visits for children ages 18–24 months. There is also an increased awareness about autism among parents and in society. The subgroup consisting of severe cases of autism has increased very little if at all. You can read more about that here.

However, it should also be noted that in addition to genetics, which is the major cause, certain factors such as higher parental age, air pollution, infections during pregnancy, obesity, diabetes, immune system disorders, low birthrate, extreme prematurity, are associated with an increased risk. Some of these factors have gotten worse. What is not the cause is vaccines. You can read more about that here, here, here, and here.

Related Super Facts

One of my super facts posts that is related to this post is:

Smallpox Killed 300 million People in the Last Century Before Eradication

A child with covered by severe blisters from smallpox. — Child with smallpox in Bangladesh 1975. Wikimedia commons photo by CDC/James Hicks.

There are also super facts that may not be directly related to this post but that share one particular feature with this super fact, and that is that they are frequent targets of denial, derision, mockery, and misrepresentation by some (or many) of our political leaders.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Super fact 51 : In 1968 5,033 Americans died from a drug overdose. In 1978 5,506 Americans died from a drug overdose. In 1999 16,801 Americans died from a drug overdose. In 2022 107,941 Americans died from a drug overdose. 82,000 of those deaths involved opioids (about 76%). The number of people who died from an opioid overdose in 2022 was 10 times the number in 1999. More than half of all opioid deaths in the world were Americans despite being only 4.2% of the world population. The hardest hit demographic is white males.

Note the data in the super fact above is taken from Wikipedia, which in turn took it from CDC. However, the data across multiple sources look roughly the same (CDC / CDC, NIDA/NIH, Our world in Data, Wikipedia). I think this is a super fact. I should add that the statistics seem to have improved a little bit in 2023 and 2024.

I’ve posted about good super facts in this blog several times:

However, unfortunately there are also bad super facts, like this one.

The Severe Drug Overdose Epidemic in the US is a Super Fact

We recently went to the funeral for the young son (in his 20’s) of good friends of ours. He died from a drug overdose. The same thing happened to another friend of ours not too long ago. Despite all the talk about drugs, the war of drugs, and the “just say no campaign”, in the 1980’s I don’t remember this happening to people I knew when I was young, so I looked up the statistics. I knew we had an opioid epidemic with Fentanyl being the greatest culprit followed by Heroin. I just didn’t realize how severe it was and how American it was. This is important and shocking and the sources behind the data are reliable, which is why I consider this a super fact.

The United States Has by Far the Highest Death Rate from Opioids

If you play around with this graph from Our World in Data you will notice that the United States has a very high rate of deaths from drug overdoses, especially opioids, much higher than any other country. For example, take my home country Sweden, where 283 people died from opioid in 2021 (398 all drugs, data from IHME). Compare that with the United States, where 55,452 died from opioid in 2021 (70,893 all drugs, data from IHME). Adjust that for the population in each country you get a rate of 16.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants for the US and 2.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants for the Sweden. Sweden and the US are both open wealthy democracies in which certain opioids are legal for medical purposes but otherwise illegal. The graph below has slightly different numbers but notice that the year (2024) is different.

The picture shows a world map with the death rate from opioids for different countries shown in lighter to darker colors. United States out in dark brown with a death rate of 15.4. Canada also looks dark with a death rate of 6.9. Most of the rest of the world have a lighter color | The US Drug Overdose Epidemic is Extreme — Data source : Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (2024). The graph is taken from Our World in Data .

Some illustrative Graphics on Drug Deaths

The graphs below illustrate both the sharp rise in drug related deaths, especially opioids, as well as how hard hit the United States is compared to the rest of the world.

The graph shows a steep increase of deaths from opioids. Deaths from other drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine are relatively minor | The US Drug Overdose Epidemic is Extreme — The population of the United States is 340 million.

In this graph cocaine is the dominant cause of death. However, at less than 1,400 it is relatively minor compared to the deaths from opioids in the US | The US Drug Overdose Epidemic is Extreme — The population of South America is 438 million

This graph shows an increase in deaths from opiods, like the US graph, but it is more moderate. — The population of Europe is 744 million.

This graph is swinging up and then down, and does not show the strong upward trend that the US graph does. — The population of Asia is 4,800 million.

The graph shows a death rate per 100,000 of 21.4 for opioids, 17.8 for synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, 4.9 for prescription opioids, 4.1 for heroin, and 6.0 for cocaine | The US Drug Overdose Epidemic is Extreme — This graph shows the contribution to US deaths from specific drugs including synthetic opioids (Fentanyl), Heroin, prescription opioids, and cocaine. Notice that the vertical axis shows the death rate per 100,000 people and not the total number of deaths. Data source : US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER. Note: Opioids include prescription pain relief drugs, synthetic opioids, excluding methadone and other opioids such as heroin. The graph is taken from Our World in Data.