Ep. 11: The Gateway Drug. Eric Michael Garcia on autism, vaccines and RFK Jr.
Veteran reporter Eric Michael Garcia, author of "We're Not Broken" on autism and his own experience, goes deep with us on health food, vaccines and the horseshoe effect
Friends, for our latest episode of The Ground Game Podcast (subscribe at our YouTube page if you haven’t already) we brought on an expert on autism and vaccines, Eric Michael Garcia.
Eric himself is autistic and has written extensively about his experiences and growth, with this great column from 2015 and his 2021 book, “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation” and many more.
This episode very much embodies Patrick and mine’s shared ethos: We interview guests who have good, accurate information. If someone’s half-cooked or demonstrably wrong, they’re not coming on this show. We talk to the people who know and understand these things so that you can know and learn.
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Coming tomorrow, the latest column from pollster and campaigns expert Michael Cohen. He’s got a great, counterintuitive look, at a new dynamic in the Trump era of American politics.
Make sure to catch me today at 5:30p ET on CBS News’ America Decides with host Bob Costa and guest Sabrina Rodriguez. We’ll be talking about all the latest in the Trump nominations and more. And in case you missed me last night, here’s my roundup with Andrew Craft of LiveNow from Fox on the nomination battles.
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Show notes
Trump in 2016 blaming autism on vaccines
The Southern California connection between Dem parents and
“The anti-vaxxers were waiting for a moment like this”
On the far left and the far right meeting at the health food store
The ethos of Alex Jones deeming the chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay
The connection is anti-government
For the far left, RFK Jr. came to this via food allergies and blamed it on vaccines
If you believe that pharmaceutical companies are poisoning your kids and making them autistic, it’s so much easier to believe any other conspiracy theory. “It’s the most basic thing to want to protect your children.”
“Do you know who hates the pharmaceutical companies more than anyone? People with disabilities!”
It wasn’t long ago that normal people rolled their eyes at vaccine skeptics, now this is mainstream
The start of the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories with Adam Wakefield in 1998, claiming that the measles vaccine causes autism
In the years before, for decades, studies said that "unloving mothers” caused autism
“It gives parents a culprit after for so many years they were blamed”
When the Goliaths of politics and Hollywood rebrand themselves as Davids
On how then NBC/Universal head Bob Wright redpilled Donald Trump on autism and vaccines
The political and cultural evolution from blame the parents to a philanthropic powerhouse of the ‘90s and ‘00s, uniting the Kennedys, Trumps and head of NBC Universal
“They see it as an issue that rich people have to fix”
RFK Jr’s descent into opposing vaccines with his child developing a food allergy.
“This is a very clever thing a lot of anti-vaxxers do, ‘No, we’re not against vaccines, we want an investigation into the mercury that’s in vaccines.’ Well, even then, they got rid of the thimerosal which is the type of mercury that’s in vaccines.”
“The anti-vaccine message is, ‘These people did something to you.’ And I think that’s a very powerful message to people when parents are overwhelmed.”
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