Science can be confusing. There are many developments going on and it's hard to keep track of it all. No one expects everyone to be an expert in every aspect of scientific theory and fact. That said, there are some things in science that are just plain wrong. What I find rather amusing is when a public figure states something that is just so wrong thinking that it is completely right. I then find it extremely horrifying when these statements end up causing so much harm.
One example of an ignoracle causing damage by stupidity when talking science is the wrongvangelist Donald Trump. It isn't exactly ground-breaking to suggest that this guy just doesn't understand science -at all. I'm not even sure if I can make 'science' more specific. Does he not understand immunology? Does he not understand earth sciences? Or is this just science in general. Sadly, I think the latter.
Donald Trump hit headlines when he made a comment in April 2024 about injecting disinfectant to combat COVID-19 His exact comments were "And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" I don't really think I need to go into why this is not just incorrect science, but also plain stupidity but I guess you never know... Disinfectant breaks down cell walls, causing microbes to rupture. They also damage cellular proteins and stop them from replicating. Humans also have cells that contain microbes and cellular proteins. So if humans were to inject disinfectant to treat COVID, it would, to be fair, 'knock it out' … but it would cause a load of damage to their own cells! To my horror and my despair for humanity, at least five states in the USA reported a sharp increase in calls to poison control centres after people started ingesting bleach.
In September 2025, Donald Trump also claimed there was a link between Tylenol (paracetamol) and an increased risk of autism. According to Trump, taking Tylenol during pregnancy 'is not good' and 'can be associated with a very increased risk of autism'. Horrific grammar aside, this is just complete and utter crap. There has been an increased rate of autism diagnosis in the last 30 years; in the UK alone there has been an 787% increase in ASD diagnosis between 1998 and 2018. However, experts worldwide credit this to increased awareness, increased testing and an expansion in the condition definition. Autism used to be a disorder only affecting children with severe language and intellectual disabilities. It is now a much wider spectrum that includes milder social- communication differences.
There WAS a 2020 study published in JAMA Psychiatry that suggested a link between a higher 'acetaminophen burden' and higher odds of ADHD, ASD and coexisting ADHD and ASD. Acetaminophen is the main component of paracetamol. But crucially, this study was only an observational study- which basically means, that the researchers watched to see what would happen. There was VERY limited evidence that the acetaminophen alone was causing anything and even the authors stated that the data they generated 'warrant additional investigations'. They also pointed out that they did not have a group that had not been exposed to acetaminophen possibly biasing the results.
Laurie Tomlinson, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine also pointed out that the study seems to ignore why paracetamol was taken by the pregnant women. She noted that women with hypermobility may need to take paracetamol for joint pain but are more likely to have children with ASD due to links between the two conditions. In addition, a Swedish study of 2.5 million children born between 1995 and 2019 did not find any association between risk of autism, intellectual disability or ADHD and pregnancy. It is still too soon to know how much damage this will cause to prenatal care and the neurodiversity community.
Another aspect of science stupidity that causes an incredible amount of damage is the 'vaccines cause autism' dumbacle and we can partly thank the nonsensical blather that Jenny McCarthy comes up with for making this ignorama even worse.
I can't believe that I'm writing this in 2025 and I wasn't even going to bring it up because of the drama it causes. But I can't have an article about stupid scientific comments and not bring the vaccines and autism debacle. Many people do believe in this quackery (there's another rhyming word that I would like to use but I will refrain) but Jenny McCarthy is one of the world's best known. According to McCarthy, her son was diagnosed with autism at 2 1/2 years old after receiving the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. She said that her son had been previously hitting all milestones but about a month after the MMR, he was having seizures, bloating, eczema and constipation - conditions that are 'comorbid' with autism. To be fair to McCarthy, she stated that she didn't think it was 'just' the MMR vaccine that 'triggered' the autism, and that it was to do with a child with autoimmune disorders receiving so many injections.
Okay, there is a link between autism and autoimmune disorders. There has been some evidence suggesting that certain gene mutations linked to the immune system have some links to ASD. This is not to say that these gene mutations will DEFINATELY cause autism. For example, a 2007 study in Portugal found 4.2% of children with ASD had a mitochondrial respiratory chain disease which can affect the activity of the immune system. So, it is completely possible that McCarthy's child did have autoimmune disorders. If these disorders were linked to genetic mutations, then yes, her son MAY have had an increased chance of autism.
But to make one thing clear...
VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM!!!!!
This whole imbroglio comes down to Andrew Wakefield, who, at the time, was a British surgeon. He has seen been struck off. In 1998, he and 12 colleagues published a case series in the Lancet - a prestigious medical journal, suggesting that the MMR vaccine may cause developmental disorders and behavioural regression in children. There were immediate problems with the paper, the first one being that only 12 children had been investigated. For those who aren't familiar with how scientific studies are carried out, 12 is a RIDICULOUSLY small sample size. Sample sizes need to reflect how widespread a condition or factor actually is. It's like picking up a handful of three-leaf clovers out of the billions of them around and stating 'four-leaf clovers don't exist'. We know four-leaf clovers exist but we also know they are rare. Likewise, 12 researchers might be able to hunt down 12 four-leaf clovers and present them saying 'all these clovers have four leaves and they were all exposed to sunlight. Therefore, sunlight causes four leaves'. 12 children having 'behavioural regression' and having had a MMR vaccine means virtually nothing. Later, Wakefield was charged with fraud, having picked the data that suited him - literally picking the four leaf clovers. He claimed that all 12 children were 'previously normal' - medical records showed that five of them had documented development concerns before receiving the vaccine. He also claimed that nine of the twelve children had 'regressive autism' - only one had been diagnosed with this.
He also made up a condition; 'autistic enterocolitis', a gut pathology that he claimed was present in autistic children and may also be associated with the vaccine. But when these children's colonic biopsy samples were reviewed, the hospital's chief pathologist judged them as 'unremarkable' - i.e. totally normal. I think this is where the lines between fact and fiction blur a bit when it comes to autism and vaccines. There MAY be a link between the gut and autism, with ASD children often experiencing gastrointestinal problems. It's not really known that Andrew Wakefield also suggested that the MMR vaccine caused gut problems even though its not true. If a person finds information about the link between the gut and autism, and then comes across information suggesting that MMR causes gut problems- without knowing that this link was fraudulent, its not improbable that they can leap across to suggesting MMR causes autism. WHICH IT DOESN'T.
There are many more examples of stupidity when talking science that I could bring up, but that would result in me ending up writing a whole novel. These examples are the ones that I think are the stupidest and also the most harmful to the human race. I'm honestly hoping that an anti-vaxxer might read this blog and decide to do a little more research- although I'm not so arrogant to think that my crazy eccentric blog will convert anyone to a new way of thinking!
That's all from me this week!
Jess x
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