Claims of a link between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism have been repeatedly disproven – despite what the US administration suggests I have treated more than 200,000 patients in almost 40 years of practising medicine. Autism is a complex disorder which can present in many different ways and in a spectrum of severity. Causation is a very important consideration and, as a paediatrician, I know that parents often ask why their child has autism. Particularly in the severe end of the autism spectrum, genetic disorders can present with autistic features; for example Angelman syndrome, Smith-Magenis syndrome, Williams syndrome and many others. However, for the majority of the children who are diagnosed with autism, no cause is found. We also know that the number of children diagnosed with autism in the developed world is increasing. There are many reasons for this, not least that we are better at diagnosing it. However, in my work I often heard the question “why is my child autistic?” Continue reading...

Astrid Jorgensen, whose show has helped unite audiences in a divided USA, says singing in a group is a ‘fast track to community’

Most Americans, including doctors, have no memory of the devastating diseases that routinely threatened children until the 1960s.

A few months before the outbreak in 2019, Kennedy travelled to Samoa and met with anti-vaccine figures, contributing to what health experts claim was a ‘significant disinformation campaign’ The week before her three children died, Fa’aoso Tuivale and her husband took them for a swim in the river flowing behind their house in the Samoan village of Lauli’i. Itila, 3, and his twin siblings, Tamara and Sale, 13 months, had a fever and their parents hoped to cool them down. The children were ill with measles and were not vaccinated. When they worsened, on a Sunday, Fa’aoso took them to hospital in Apia, 9km away. They were seen, and sent home. Continue reading...