Age of Autism

Age of Autism (often abbreviated to AoA) is a site that hosts the blogs of the ableist leaders in the field of anti-vaccination crankery and has little to do with actual autism other than the false claim that vaccines cause autism. Their bloggers include the likes of Mark Blaxill, David Kirby, J.B. Handley, and, of course, Jenny McCarthy. They also peddle "treatments" for autism produced by alternative medicine woo-meister Lee Silsby, which consist of vitamin supplements and other nature woo. Age of Autism, being the cesspool of the craziest of the anti-vaccine movement, has invoked several arguments horrible in both quality and in taste, which, of course, involves the typical PRATTs of the anti-vaccine movement that can probably fill the entire bingo card.

In a pathetic attempt at being reasonable, they proclaim themselves as "not anti-vaccine, just pro-safe vaccine" even though they have aimed their fear-mongering cannons at Gardasil and the meningitis vaccine, which are irrelevant to autism since they are administered long after when autism is typically diagnosed.

Not surprisingly for an anti-vaccine crank website, Age of Autism views itself as a champion for the so-called "medical rights" including the "right" to refuse the vaccine because they think the misinformed parent can make a decision better than a professional government-sponsored medical organization. They draw depressingly awful analogies of vaccines to things like human trafficking, rape, and, of course, Hitler and nazism. They also push conspiracy theories about Big Pharma (among others) and, interestingly, still believe they're "winning". Like any fringe vaccine conspiracy site, they fear and hate the CDC like Alex Jones does FEMA.

Bottom line, if not implied a hundred times here, they're the to-go site for the lowest parts of the anti-vaccination movement, and blaming mercury - then aluminum - as the wholly responsible factor behind their child’s condition, ignoring all other environmental factors.

Transphobia
AOA members, especially in the comments section, have attacked transgender identity especially against AFAB autistics, and many AOA members also attack non-cisgender people who give birth.

AoA Members

 * Mark Blaxill: Also a member of SafeMinds, where he pretends to be a doctor and epidemiologist...despite his lack of a medical degree. But that's OK; he's self-taught and so not a Pharma Shill! Suffers from massive amounts of Dunning-Kruger, unsurprisingly.