The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has stated that in the coming years there will be a significant decrease in the "epidemic" of autism, a disorder that he has again linked to the administration of childhood vaccines.
During an event held this Monday at the White House, Trump maintained that "You will witness a great difference in the autism rate, which is like an epidemic," insisting on his idea that vaccinations play a role in the increase of diagnoses.
In that same intervention, the president encouraged parents to modify their children's immunization schedule and to space out the injections. He defended that a single dose should be replaced with several smaller applications, with "small shots," despite the fact that this position has been repeatedly refuted by health authorities, who deny any link between vaccines and the development of autism.
Trump went further by addressing families directly: "We strongly urge that when you get the doses for your little children, I believe it has to do with preventing autism, you have to ask the doctor to give them five small doses instead of one large one," he noted, reinforcing his proposal on how vaccines should be administered.
In response to these statements, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States remind that, "to date studies continue to show that vaccines are not related" to autism, emphasizing that the available scientific evidence rules out that supposed connection.