Why are we going to talk about the association between Dravet syndrome and autism?
Wait, do you even know anything about Dravet syndrome?
Let’s Talk About the Association Between Dravet Syndrome and Autism
Ok, let’s start there.
Dravet syndrome is a genetic condition that causes hard-to-control seizures and helps to explain many of the ‘vaccine injury’ stories in children who received a DPT vaccine back in the 1980s.
“Vaccination might trigger earlier onset of Dravet syndrome in children who, because of an SCN1A mutation, are destined to develop the disease. However, vaccination should not be withheld from children with SCN1A mutations because we found no evidence that vaccinations before or after disease onset affect outcome.”
Effects of Vaccination on Onset and Outcome of Dravet Syndrome: A Retrospective Study.
How do we know that?
Well, for one thing, many of the claims that parents filed for these children in Vaccine Court failed because they were found to have Dravet syndrome!
There’s more.
Studies have also found that up to 60% of individuals with Dravet syndrome meet the diagnostic criteria for a diagnosis of autism.
That means that if a child developed uncontrolled seizures after a DPT vaccine and was later diagnosed with autism, instead of a vaccine injury, you should likely be thinking Dravet syndrome.
Interestingly, if RFK, Jr had done just that, he might have stuck to caring about the environment instead of moving to his anti-vaccine crusade.
Why?
Remember that RFK, Jr was influenced by Sarah Bridges and the story of her son, who had a 90-minute seizure after his DPT vaccine at 4 months of age. Her son who went on to have 14 40 hospitalizations for seizures by age 3, developmental delays, and autism.
And while he received a compensated claim from the Vaccine Court, it was for encephalopathy (a table injury), not autism.
“After 72 hours in the hospital Porter was smiling again, and by the end of the day he was allowed to go home. Porter seemed fine, and I told everyone who asked about him how lucky we were.
And then two weeks later he stopped breathing.”
Reaction
What else?
“SCN1A mutations were identified in 11 of 14 patients with alleged vaccine encephalopathy; a diagnosis of a specific epilepsy syndrome was made in all 14 cases.”
De-novo mutations of the sodium channel gene SCN1A in alleged vaccine encephalopathy: a retrospective study
Her claim went through before we knew anything about Dravet syndrome…
“I didn’t want to do that with my life. I wanted to work on rivers and energy. And one of these women came to my home in Hyannis Port in the summer of 2005. She was a psychologist, a Minnesotan named Sarah Bridges. She had a child who had gotten autism from a vaccine and had gotten a $20 million award from the vaccine court for his autism.”
RFK, Jr
And again, her Vaccine Court claim was not for autism.