Autism & Vaccines: Are We Ignoring the Evidence? | Part Two

What if the rise in autism wasn’t just about better diagnosis or genetics, but something we’re all missing? In this episode, Dr. Ryan and Mrs. Madi Partovi dive deep into the data, history, and controversy behind the autism epidemic and the expansion of the childhood vaccine schedule.

Join us on The Partovi Effect as we ask the questions mainstream medicine won’t touch: Why did autism rates begin to skyrocket at the exact moment the vaccine schedule exploded? Is it really “dangerous misinformation” to investigate this connection, or is it a vital public health question?

Dr. Ryan Partovi and Mrs. Madi Partovi walk you through the evidence, from CDC data and historical trends to the latest studies on vaccine ingredients like aluminum adjuvants. We break down:

• The dramatic rise in autism rates, from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 31 children, and why this can’t be explained by awareness alone
• The parallel expansion of the childhood vaccine schedule and what the data actually shows
• Environmental factors, genetic susceptibility, and why aluminum exposure stands out in the research
• Why asking tough questions about vaccine safety is NOT misinformation, but necessary for public trust and child health

Whether you’re a parent, a healthcare professional, or just curious about the science, this episode gives you the tools to think critically and make informed decisions.

Key Highlights:

• The real numbers behind the autism surge and vaccine schedule
• What the CDC and mainstream medicine get right-and what they miss
• The science of correlation vs. causation (and why it matters for your family)
• Actionable takeaways for parents and policymakers

Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation that challenges assumptions and puts the facts front and center.

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The contents of this podcast are for educational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Talk to your medical professional before starting any new treatment.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Introduction: Questioning Vaccine Safety

So why is it even dangerous misinformation to even ask that whether injecting infants with dozens of shots might be contributing to this epidemic? Yeah, that's a really good question.

I think that I. Touched on that already a little bit, but I'll just say that to reemphasize that the way that it's contextualized as dangerous misinformation is primarily an industry talking point, right? It's the idea that, oh, well this is dangerous because it could be leading to, children potentially dying from not getting vaccinated from these communicable diseases.

Most of which have a very low incident fatality rate. We're talking, 0.01% or less. But yeah, I think that to [00:01:00] me if you characterize something as dangerous misinformation, then it's easier to dismiss it. Right? And I think that's why it's important that we have such an airtight case here.

Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. Okay. But did you have any questions? I do. 

Historical BackgroundAutism Rates and Vaccine Schedule Correlation

So autism rates began to spike at the exact moment that the vaccine schedule expanded or exploded. How is that not worth investigating? Like why hasn't it been investigated in depth thus far?

Yeah. Well, I think it is worth investigating and we're about to do it. Autism was first described by Leo Canner in 1943, and there were only a handful of cases noted in the medical literature at that time. For several decades, it remained a rare diagnosis. So through the 1970s and eighties prevalence estimates ranged in orderof a few cases per 10,000 children.

Starting in the [00:02:00] 1990s, however, autism rates began a steep ascent, The rise was well documented by the early two thousands. By 2007, the US CDC reported autism prevalence of one in 150 children for birth year 1994, which further climbed to one in 68 by the 2010 birth cohort. The estimate of one in 36 for the 2012 birth year reflected a roughly 200 fold increase in autism diagnosis since the early 1980s.

And we've seen now they're coming out saying one in 31 is the updated number. And I'm not sure which birth year that represents, but I'm sure we'll know soon. So again, there's been expanded diagnostic criteria, greater awareness. I'm not denying that's contributed to higher reported cases, but those factors alone cannot explain such an enormous increase.

That's absurd. People claiming that need to have their heads [00:03:00] examined. Careful analysis have estimated the majority of the rise on an order of 75 to 80% represents a real increase in autism incidents, not just an artifact. this comes from the study I'll read you the name of the study.

A comparison of temporal trends in the United States. Autism prevalence to trends in suspected environmental factors by Cynthia Nevison in Environmental Health published in 2014. In other words, more children truly have autism today than a few decades ago. So that really points back to the idea that new environmental triggers must be involved in the pathogenesis, the cause of autism.

Autism Rates vs. Vaccine Schedule ExpansionHistorical and Current Vaccine Schedules

So over that same timeframe, the US Childhood Immunization schedule has grown a lot more intensive. In the early eighties, infants received just a handful of [00:04:00] vaccines. It was the T dap, it was actually called the DTP back then. Diptheria, tetanus, pertussis polio, MMR, measles, maybe one or two others.

But by 1995, you had new vaccines for hemophilus, influenza Type B, which is the HIV vaccine. It's also called hib. Hepatitis B has been added for all infants, and we can, that's continued to grow through the two thousands with now we've got the chickenpox vaccine, which we've talked a little bit about that before about how it's caused the shingles rates to go shoot up since we've had the chickenpox vaccine.

'cause adults are no longer getting that booster of immunity against the virus that causes chickenpox. So it ends up coming back out and causing shingles as adults, the Pneumococcal vaccine, the rotavirus vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, as well as annual flu shots and the covid vaccine now.

So as a result, the number of vaccine doses given to an average child by age two roughly tripled [00:05:00] from the early eighties to the two thousands. For example, a baby born in 1983 might have received around eight to 10 inoculations total by age two. Baby in 2010 could receive around 25 to 30 injections by the same age, some of which are gonna be combination shots protecting against multiple diseases.

So if you count each disease specific immunization, the 2013 schedule effectively included vaccination against 14 different illnesses. That's of course debatable about how effective that is, but, I'm sure we'll get to that eventually. But that's not today's topic by age 18 months. 

So 14 different antigen exposures by 18 months. And then figure one, which I'm about to show you, illustrates the timeline of expanding vaccine schedule alongside autism prevalence data. So I'm going to display our [00:06:00] figure one, and for those who are not watching on YouTube, feel free to go to YouTube to see this.

So with figure one, we're seeing the autism prevalence which is plotted as, one in X number of children, and that's gonna be the blue line. And then versus the number of vaccine doses in the routine schedule, which is the orange line. And you can see that, we've 10 to the fourth powers.

This is the one in 10,000 number. And then now we're one in 30, one in 36 is where this is. You can see how that's gone up and it's literally tracked the cumulative vaccine doses by age five pretty much perfectly. And both of course have really increased dramatically since the early eighties.

These are based on CDC surveillance estimates. Vaccine doses are based on the recommended immunization schedule for a [00:07:00] child through age five and each year. This just is giving you a clear indication of the trend. And this doesn't establish causation, right? We're not there yet, but it's showing that there's a strong correlation, which means, hey, there's something worth investigating here.

So

the parallel upward trajectories of vaccine dosing and autism diagnoses are pretty apparent by that graph. And of course, like I said, correlation doesn't prove causation, but in its essential clue that is worth investigation and some scrutiny. 

Investigating Environmental Factors and Autism

In 2004 the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review noted that the autism rise coincided with expanded immunizations.

But of course, nonetheless concluded that existing studies did not support a causal Many officials attributed the correlation to coincidence, given that both vaccination and autism awareness were increasing for other [00:08:00] reasons. But subsequent analysis strengthened the argument that the correlation is not merely spurious.

Notably, an environmental epidemiology study by Nevison, which I cited earlier, examined numerous potential environmental contributors to the autism surge and found that most had trends that diverged from autism. So she looked at other environmental factors and found that, well, these don't really track along with autism as well as vaccination.

For example, leaded gasoline, certain pesticides actually decreased in use from the nineties to the two thousands, and therefore could be ruled out as primary drivers of rising autism. In contrast, one factor stood out for its positive correlation with autism rates, the increased cumulative exposure to aluminum adjuvanted vaccines in early childhood.

And again, an adjuvant is basically a toxin that is put in there to stimulate the immune [00:09:00] response. In fact, researchers have shown that this correlation satisfies many of the classical Bradford Hill criteria for inferring causality, including the strength of the association and the temporality, how closely the timing matches.

So taken together with that sheer magnitude of the concurrent trendsit's elevating the vaccine hypothesis from just a casual observation to a serious contender, which I think is why there's been as much talk about it as there has in terms of explaining, where did this epidemic come from?