#2822: Rebecca Estepp

Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) is an anti-vaccine group known for blaming vaccines for autism like it was 2003 and for being devoted to promoting various kinds of potentially dangerous woo and quackery and pseudoscience as potential cures for autism. (Though they seemed to have tried to tone down the conspiracy theories a bit after changing their name to The Autism Community in Action in 2018.) The group was founded by Lisa Ackerman, and its national manager, at least during the group’s antivaccine heydays, Rebecca Estepp, has made a bit a name for herself in antivaccine circles.

 

Indeed, Estepp – the mother of an autistic child she incorrectly believes is vaccine injured – was one of the claimants in the 2007 Autism Omnibus trials, and was predictably disappointed with the (obvious) outcome, rhetorically asking “When does anecdotal evidence become enough?”, the scientific answer to which is, of course, “never”. Estepp also asserted (this time representing the anti-vaccine) Coalition for Vaccine Safety that “[t]he deck is stacked against families in vaccine court. Government attorneys defend a government program, using government-funded science, before government judges” – a fair system would presumably rather rely on anecdotes interpreted by anti-vaccine activists and bloggers. In 2010, when the medical journal The Lancet issued a full retraction of Andrew Wakefield’s paper linking vaccines and autism, Estepp – speaking for TACA –  insisted that she still trusted Wakefield’s research.

 

As a matter of fact, Estepp seems to be claiming not only that vaccines are dangerous (false) and fail to prevent disease (false), but that vaccines might make you more likely to contract vaccine-preventable disease. But then, Estepp’s ability to determine safety and effectiveness is demonstrably subpar; Estepp recommends e.g. chelation therapy as a cure for autism and was dumbfounded when the government declined to fund a study on chelation therapies and autism “with no explanation”; of course, the government did explain: it isn’t safe; it just wasn’t the explanation Estepp wanted to hear.

 

As communications director for the anti-vaccine group Health Choice, Estepp was also heavily involved in the 2015 protests against California’s SB277, which restricted the use of non-medical exemptions to vaccine requirements in public schools (something Estepp herself had made use of for her children). She was also affiliated with the antivaccine Canary Party.

 

Diagnosis: Yes, evidence, accuracy and science is a conspiracy against concerned antivaccine parents – same as always, though at least Estepp is, as opposed to many anti-vaccine activists, more or less clear that this is exactly what she’s claiming.