Hassan Slams Kennedy for Sowing Doubts on Vaccines and Autism

I am the proud mother of a 36-year-old young man with severe cerebral palsy, and a day does not go by when I don’t think about what did I do when I was pregnant with him that might have caused the hydrocephalus that has so impacted his life. So please do not suggest that anybody in this body of either political party doesn’t want to know what the cause of autism is. Do you know how many friends I have with children who have autism? The problem with this witness’s response on the autism cause and the relationship to vaccines is because he’s relitigating and churning settled science, so we can’t go forward and find out what the cause of autism is, and treat these kids and help these families. Mr. Kennedy, that first autism study rocked my world. And like every mother, I worried about whether, in fact, the vaccine had done something to my son. And you know what? It was a tiny study of about 12 kids. And over time, the scientific community studied and studied and studied, and found that it was wrong. And the journal retracted the study. Because sometimes science is wrong. We make progress, we build on the work and we become more successful. And when you continue to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward.