Are Amish children healthier because they’re unvaccinated?
The claim that unvaccinated Amish children are healthier is false. Studies find no vaccine-autism link, and vaccines protect against serious disease.
We debunk the latest vaccine misinformation each week in our Just the Facts: Correcting this week’s disinformation newsletter. Browse the other Just the Facts Newsletter Topics by clicking the link below:
The claim that unvaccinated Amish children are healthier is false. Studies find no vaccine-autism link, and vaccines protect against serious disease.
COVID vaccines may not prevent every infection, but they lower severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Rodgers’s claim that they do not work is wrong.
Community immunity does not require perfect vaccines. About 93% immunity can slow measles spread, contrary to Brian Hooker’s claim.
Measles is not a mild illness. About 1 in 5 people in the United States needs hospital care, and infection can cause pneumonia and immune amnesia.
Dr. Paul Offit says more evidence is needed before ruling out measles in a Pennsylvania newborn’s death from a ruptured spleen.
Measles can weaken the spleen.
MMR vaccines are not killing children. The Zenodo paper relies on VAERS data that cannot by itself show vaccines caused deaths.
Vaccines do not cause autism. Large studies, including a 2026 study of 2.5 million U.S. children after MMR vaccination, find no link.
Most measles cases are in unvaccinated or unknown-status people, not evidence of MMR waning. COVID vaccines protect children, studies confirm.
Vaccine benefits are not exaggerated. A CDC study projects lifetime illness and death prevented across millions of children born from 1994 onward.
Japan’s vaccine delay didn’t cause SIDS to drop. Rates rose until 1998, when a safe-sleep program launched. Vaccinated kids have lower SIDS risk.