Seated at his desk in his office, Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood stared into a camera and made a bold statement.

“I’m Nico LaHood,” he said. “I’m the criminal district attorney in San Antonio, Texas. I’m here to tell you that vaccines can and do cause autism.”

The video ends with a plug for a documentary, “Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe,” and promises that “Niko’s (sic) Story” is “coming” today.

The “Autism Media Channel” posted the video to Facebook on Friday. Two days later, LaHood screened the controversial documentary at Santikos Bijou Cinema Bistro, according to a source who was invited to (but didn’t attend) the Sunday screening.

There is no scientific evidence that links childhood vaccinations to autism, a finding confirmed by numerous studies and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. LaHood’s insistence to the contrary has upset some autism advocates, including Fiona O’Leary, a mother of autistic children who posted a reaction on Facebook.

“I’m really, really outraged by this comment actually because we’re used to hearing the quacks and the discredited doctors terrifying parents,” O’Leary said. “But now, we have a professional, a criminal district attorney, making these statements. This man was in his office when he made this statement, presenting under his professional title as a criminal district attorney.

“It’s a reckless statement, and I think he should issue a public apology,” she added.

To the contrary, LaHood doubled down on his statement Monday before testifying to the Texas House Committee on County Affairs at Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

“I’ve prayed about it,” LaHood told reporters. “You know that I’m a man of faith. James 4:17 says, ‘If you know the truth and you know what’s right and you stay quiet, then you are sinning.’”

LaHood said vaccinations “injured” two of his children — one developed “skin allergies,” he said, and another was diagnosed with autism — and he and his wife have opted not to vaccinate their other two children.

“If it continues to go the way it’s going, by 2032 one in two children in our country will be autistic,” LaHood said. “Eighty percent of those will be boys.”

Elected in 2014, LaHood at first downplayed the use of his public office to espouse his views and promote the documentary.

“My opinions are just my opinions as a daddy, as a husband who happens to be the DA,” he said.

But soon after, LaHood equated his campaign against vaccinations with a search for “justice.”

“Look, this is about our children,” he said. “Let’s all put our pride aside, let’s all put our personal opinions aside and let’s truly look at this scientifically. Science roughly is the pursuit of truth, the rational pursuit of truth. Me, as a prosecutor, my oath is to seek justice — not to be convenient, not to look for a pat on the back, but to seek justice.”

But this is about LaHood’s personal opinion — an opinion that contradicts science and embraces conspiracy theory.

On Monday, ethics experts told me the district attorney’s latest escapade likely didn’t violate any state rules or laws. But that doesn’t make it professional.

“It seems more bizarre than illegal for a district attorney to officially proclaim that vaccines ‘cause autism,’” said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice. “Unless LaHood’s office put the screws to those vaccines and got them to confess to an autism conspiracy, you just wouldn’t expect him to voice an official opinion on a health controversy.

“What’s happened?” Wheat added. “Did San Antonio run out of crooks to prosecute? I don’t get it.”

Buck Wood, an Austin elections lawyer and Texas ethics expert, also expressed incredulity.

“It’s hard for me to believe you’ve got a district attorney who’s stupid enough to buy into this whole vaccine stuff,” Wood said. “But I don’t think there’s anything keeping him from doing it. No matter how ridiculous I think it is, it is a matter of public concern, and he can speak out on it and he can use his office as a backdrop.”

bchasnoff@express-news.net