Do vaccine inserts prove a connection to autism?

In an interview with optical mouse inventor Steve Kirsch, RFK Jr. claims that the papers that come in vaccine packages admit that vaccines cause autism.

RFK Jr. says that “each of the 405 diseases that have become common since 1989 is listed as a side effect in vaccine inserts.” But this mixes up two different ideas.

Vaccine inserts do not list only side effects. They list something called adverse events. An adverse event is anything that happens after a vaccine is given, whether or not the vaccine caused it. A person could get sick days or weeks after a vaccine for reasons that have nothing to do with the shot. It still might get reported and added to the list.

Here’s a simple example: a Hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine insert lists “herpes zoster” (shingles, which comes from the chickenpox virus) as an adverse event. But the Hep B vaccine does not contain that virus. So it cannot directly cause shingles. It just means someone developed shingles sometime after getting the vaccine.

The same idea applies when autism is mentioned. It can be reported after vaccination, but that does not mean the vaccine caused it. The question of whether vaccines cause autism has been studied for many years. Scientists have looked at this very carefully, and the answer has stayed the same: vaccines do not cause autism.

The claim first came from a 1998 paper by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield. Later, researchers found that the paper used false information. Because of this, the journal removed it, and Wakefield lost his medical license.

Since then, many large, careful studies have been done. Some followed hundreds of thousands of children. For example, one study in Denmark tracked more than 650,000 children. These studies found no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

Scientists have also learned more about autism itself. Autism begins very early in development, often before a baby is born. Brain differences linked to autism start forming in the womb. Genetics (the traits we inherit from our parents) also plays a big role.

Because vaccines are given after birth, they cannot be the cause of autism.