#2861: Michael W. Fox

Few scientific conclusion are better established, despite protestations from loons and conspiracy theorists, than the conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. The Washington Post’s veterinary advice “Animal Doctor” columnist and former vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, Michael W. Fox, is, however, one of those loons and conspiracy theorists who disagree. Indeed, not only does Fox believe, contrary to all evidence, that there is a connection between vaccines and autoimmune diseases and that the medical establishment is in a conspiracy to deny it and discount antivaccine rants and anecdotes suggesting a different opinion: Fox also believes that vaccines cause autism in animals – that, at least, is the delusional idea espoused in his 2016 Local Living column ‘When cats are very needy, they often knead a lot’, where he also promote the silly book Vaccines and Autoimmunity compiled by familiar anti-vaccine stalwarts like Yehuda Shoenfield and Lucija Tomljenovic.

 

Now, Fox is in fact one of several sources for the notion that pets can get “autism”, an idea that has apparently become popular among some groups (no serious science suggests quite that). But Fox’s championship of the idea should probably be seen in light of his having built a significant part of his career on producing eccentric papers on attempts to apply pop-psychology and Freudian concepts to pets, e.g. a paper on the ‘evidence’ of the Oedipus complex in dogs, and similarly eccentric columns for the Washington Post on e.g. post-traumatic stress disorders in cats and obsessive-compulsive disorders and panic attacks in dogs, and so on. It’s all gibberish, but it makes his current notability as a leading advocate for anti-vaccine nonsense to pet owners not entirely surprising.

 

Now, Fox may, in fact, be British, but given his stint as vice president of the Humane Society of the United States (and because we didn’t discover his nationality until writing this post), we’ll grandfather him in here.

 

Diagnosis: Do not listen to this delusional lunatic about anything. Keep a safe distance, and make sure to keep your pets at a safe distance, too.