The Republican frontrunner told similar anecdotes about employee’s baby contracting autism at Republican debate – and on Fox News in 2012

Donald Trump blames a link to vaccines for causing autism. But he can’t blame vaccines for his own apparent memory problem.

The Republican presidential frontrunner told the GOP debate on Wednesday about one particular case. “People that work for me, just the other day, two years old, beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”



Whatever the cause of the ailment, it was a sad story. But not, it seems, a new story. In April 2012 the tycoon-turned reality TV star told a very similar tale to Fox News.

“It happened to somebody that worked for me recently. I mean, they had this beautiful child, not a problem in the world, and all of the sudden they go in and they get this monster shot ... they pump this in to this little body and then all of the sudden the child is different a month later.”

Was Trump referring to two different cases, or was he recycling the same story and freshening it up with a “just the other day” reference? His campaign did not respond to a Guardian query on Thursday.

The apparent blurring of time, according to political and medical experts, fit a pattern of smudging facts about vaccinations.

Trump, they said, peddled a false theory which put children’s health at risk. “What Trump said is not just wrong, it’s dangerous because if people take him seriously and delay vaccines for their children the children could get sick,” said Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and author of The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum.

“A lot of what Trump says is annoying but this is serious. Vaccines are just about the only cause of autism that scientists have ruled out.”

Matt Zahn, medical director of epidemiology and assessment for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which battled a measles outbreak at Disneyland earlier this year, lamented the candidate’s intervention. “It’s not helpful. It does give the impression that the water is muddy when it’s not at all. It’s disappointing that this issue has been raised again.”

A 1998 Lancet report by researcher Andrew Wakefield linked vaccines to autism, triggering a decade-long, anguished debate on both sides of the Atlantic until the report was discredited and retracted, and Wakefield disgraced.

Official medical advice says vaccines are safe, but some parents still worry that vaccines – especially the standard measles, mumps and rubella jab – can overload a child’s immune system.

Two other GOP candidates, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, both physicians, partially challenged Trump on the stage at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, which hosted the debate.

“The fact of the matter is, we have extremely well-documented proof that there is no autism associated with vaccinations,” said Carson. But he agreed with the billionaire that doctors were probably giving too many shots in too short a period of time.

Paul took the same position: “I’m all for vaccines, but I’m also for freedom. I’m also a little concerned about how they’re bunched up.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other institutions, warns against skipping or delaying vaccinations, saying the schedule is safe. Zahn agrees. “We want to make sure that the message is consistent.”

Pitney, a former Republican operative, said Trump appeared to be sincere since he aired his views long before running for the White House. He faulted Carson and Paul for ducking an opportunity to nail the myth. “They had an opportunity to show real courage by taking him on strongly and directly and they didn’t. I think they didn’t want to take on this very vocal group of people who believe in vaccine theory.”

Despite assurances from the CDC and research in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders debunking any link between autism and vaccines, a movement opposed to existing vaccine protocols has taken root in the US.

High-profile figures include the actor Jenny McCarthy and an Orange County doctor, Bob Sears, who authored The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child.

Wealthy parents have proved especially receptive to the message that health authorities are in the pocket of “big pharma”, including some environmentalists and liberal Democrats, such as Robert Kennedy Jr.

In California more than 150 schools have exemption rates of 8% or higher for at least one vaccine – all in high income areas, according to an Los Angeles Times study last year.

Measles vaccines are said to be 99% effective but when a significant minority of children are not vaccinated “herd immunity” breaks down.

The outbreak of measles which spread after an unvaccinated person visited Disneyland infected more than 150 people in the US and Mexico. Most were in California.

The ensuing outcry prompted the state in June to pass one of the US’s strictest vaccination regimes: nearly all public schoolchildren must be vaccinated against diseases including measles and whooping cough, with exemptions only for children with serious health issues. Other unvaccinated children must be home schooled.

Trump’s debate comments will have cheered the small, highly motivated coalition of parents groups which wants to repeal the law.

Dr Sears, the controversial vaccine protocol skeptic, has detailed on his Facebook page how parents can fight it. “Try to get every Legislator who voted yes to lose his or her next election. And join every protest and meeting you can to make your voices heard.”

Pitney said one hostile critic on Amazon urged people to burn his book The Politics of Autism. Misguided progressives and conservatives embraced conspiracy theories about vaccinations, he said, but in this race for the White House it was an issue only among Republican candidates. “It joins with anti-government sentiment on the Republican side.”