{"id":77418,"date":"2017-07-10T19:20:35","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T23:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=77418"},"modified":"2017-07-10T19:22:15","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T23:22:15","slug":"texas-district-attorney-insists-that-vaccines-cause-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=77418","title":{"rendered":"Texas District Attorney Insists That Vaccines Cause Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>VIDEO: San Antonio D.A. Claims Vaccines Cause Autism<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>The top prosecutor in San Antonio, Texas, reignited the anti-vaccination debate this week, sharing his\u00a0personal views that childhood vaccines can and do cause autism.<\/h2>\n<p>by\u00a0MERRILL HOPE<br \/>\nBreitbart.com<\/p>\n<p>Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood, elected in 2014, spoke his mind following a local\u00a0screening of the controversial documentary\u00a0<em><a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/vaxxedthemovie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe<\/a><\/em>, which asserts childhood vaccines are linked to autism.<\/p>\n<p>The film\u2019s director, Andrew Wakefield, claimed to associate\u00a0the Mumps, Measles, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism spectrum-like symptoms in the late 1990\u2019s, although he was later discredited for faking data in an \u201celaborate fraud,\u201d Breitbart News\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/big-journalism\/2011\/01\/07\/fraud-medical-journal-claims-docs-study-linking-vaccines-to-autism-fueled-by-money\/\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>LaHood attributes his five-year-old son\u2019s autism to infant inoculations. On Monday, the D.A.\u00a0appeared in a 21-second trailer, \u201c<em>Vaxxed Stories: the Prosecutor,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>which promoted \u201cNico\u2019s story\u201d on the Autism Media Channel.<\/p>\n<p>In it, he said:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m Nico LaHood. I\u2019m the criminal district attorney in San Antonio, Texas. I\u2019m here to tell you that vaccines can and do cause autism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TJs2VzgBOVI<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, LaHood\u00a0posted the entire\u00a011-minute interview on Facebook, sharing why he and wife Davida believed infant inoculations were responsible for son Michael\u2019s autism. LaHood wrote: \u201cThere has been a lot of attention, criticism, and support coming locally, nationally and even internationally regarding my opinion that there may be a link between autism and vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Pi9PNKW7w3Q<\/p>\n<p><a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ksat.com\/news\/politics\/district-attorney-nico-lahood-vaccines-cause-autism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to<\/a>\u00a0KSAT, LaHood was asked whether he should be voicing his opinion due to his political office. He responded: \u201cMy opinions are just my opinions. As a daddy, as a husband, who happens to be the district attorney. People are allowed to have a First Amendment right to an opinion. I know this is not a politically correct opinion.\u201d He commented\u00a0he was\u00a0ready for any \u201cbacklash\u201d from\u00a0saying vaccines cause autism.<\/p>\n<p>In response,\u00a0Dr. Peter Hotez,\u00a0president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children\u2019s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at the Baylor College of Medicine, emphatically tweeted he could not believe he was still having to defend\u00a0vaccinations.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Amazing I&#39;m still defending vaccines vaccination going on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ktsanews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ktsanews<\/a> now to debunk the pseudoscience crap in &quot;Vaxxed&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cB3roFeBhE\">pic.twitter.com\/cB3roFeBhE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeterHotez\/status\/770636196938526720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 30, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The medical expert is also the father of an autistic daughter. He\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ktsa.com\/lahood-elaborates-vaccine-stance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a>\u00a0San Antonio news radio KTSA scientific studies show no link between vaccinations and autism.\u00a0Hotez has\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/abc13.com\/health\/vaccine-expert-explains-threat-of-anti-vaxx-population\/509060\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called<\/a>\u00a0measles a leading cause of child mortality, killing 100,000 youngsters worldwide\u00a0every year. He fears Texas will experience a measles outbreak if parents stop vaccinating their children.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, on World Autism Day, Hotez\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/momentumblog.bcm.edu\/2014\/04\/02\/thoughts-on-world-autism-awareness-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stated<\/a>: \u201cFrom a scientific perspective, there is no scenario where it is even remotely possible that vaccines cause autism. Instead everything I know both as a parent and as a scientist points to autism as a genetic or epigenetic condition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccinesafety\/concerns\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">maintain<\/a>\u00a0vaccines are safe\u00a0and\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/vac-gen\/whatifstop.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">credit<\/a>\u00a0them with\u00a0taming whooping cough, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, and tetanus in the population.\u00a0Since 2003, the CDC funded or conducted nine studies on thimerosal, the\u00a0mercury-based preservative used to prevent contamination of multi-dose vials of vaccines. Between\u00a01999 and 2001, thimerosal\u00a0was\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccinesafety\/concerns\/thimerosal\/timeline.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">removed or reduced<\/a>\u00a0to trace amounts in all childhood vaccines except for some flu vaccines.\u00a0Despite allegations by critics the ingredient was\u00a0an\u00a0autism-related toxin, no link was\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccinesafety\/concerns\/autism.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A statement by\u00a0San Antonio Metropolitan Health District officials\u00a0<a class=\" x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/media.ksat.com\/document_dev\/2016\/08\/30\/metro%20health%20statement_1472591984550_7858442_ver1.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mirrored<\/a>\u00a0CDC findings on thimerosal, also alluding to\u00a0Wakefield when mentioning the \u201clong ago debunked study in the 1998 issue of the journal Lancet was retracted for shoddy and misleading interpretation of scientific findings.\u201d Public\u00a0health officials reiterated the importance of vaccinating children.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Breitbart California\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/california\/2015\/05\/09\/study-mmr-vaccine-doesnt-cause-autism\/\">reported<\/a>\u00a0on a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study that supported the MMR vaccine did not cause autism.<\/p>\n<p>Of the estimated 5.5 million Texas children attending K-12 public, charter, and private schools, only 0.84 percent or nearly 45,000 are not vaccinated through the state\u2019s conscientious exemptions, Breitbart Texas\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/texas\/2016\/08\/16\/texas-parents-said-no-school-vaccines-last-year\/\">reported<\/a>. Current Texas law requires all school children get immunized but parents can opt-out for personal, philosophical or religious reasons. However, in 2015, the Austin Regional Clinic announced they would no longer retain patients or accept new ones who lack routine childhood vaccinations because of parents or guardians who oppose them.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/texas\/2016\/08\/31\/video-san-antonio-d-claims-vaccines-cause-autism\/\">http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/texas\/2016\/08\/31\/video-san-antonio-d-claims-vaccines-cause-autism\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VIDEO: San Antonio D.A. Claims Vaccines Cause Autism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}