NEW YORK -– With some 2016 Republican presidential contenders facing criticism Monday for suggesting that parents shouldn’t be compelled to vaccinate their children, several news outlets reported that President Barack Obama had, as a candidate in 2008, also given credence to the discredited theory that vaccinations may cause autism.
Vox reported Monday afternoon that Obama had “pandered to anti-vaxxers in 2008” by questioning “the validity of vaccines.” Sarah Kliff, the author of the Vox story, cited a quote from Obama in 2008, which she sourced to a blog post by Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan.
“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.”
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A few hours after Vox published its story, Politico similarly reported that Obama had said he was “suspicious” that vaccines caused autism. As of Tuesday morning, the story’s lede said the president was “not always such a staunch believer in getting children vaccinated,” based on the April 2008 comments.
Following a question from HuffPost about that framing, however, Politico tweaked the lede Tuesday to instead state that Obama “once appeared to call a purported link between autism and vaccines ‘inconclusive.’”
The New York Times also reported Monday that Obama said in 2008 that he was “suspicious” of a vaccine-autism link, as part of a broader story about how the current measles outbreak is influencing the 2016 presidential race. The Times has since corrected the story to acknowledging Obama was instead “pointing to a member of the crowd.”
