Today we sit down with Maija Hahn, an autism expert and speech pathologist.
Ms. Hahn began studying autism 27 years ago before the condition was widely spread in the United States.
“[In the 90s] it was one in 10,000. … Those parents couldn’t even find a doctor to diagnose autism because it was so rare. The doctors [had] never seen it,” she said.
At that time, there was little association between vaccination and regression into autism. The only reason Ms. Hahn heard about it was because in her college years, she was approached by a group of parents with severely autistic children.
“All but one of these families said it was right after the MMR vaccine, that their children started to regress,” said Ms. Hahn.
After encountering these cases, she developed some suspicions about vaccine safety, but she also trusted the doctors and the Centers For Disease Control (CDC).
“They pushed the idea that [vaccine-induced autism] is still one in a million.”
So Ms. Hahn chose to delay the pediatric shots for her first son. He received his first group shots at the age of two. Twenty-one days later, he began regressing.