Peter Hotez The Washington Post profiled Peter Hotez July 1, the president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, the chair of George Washington University's department of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine, and a consultant to the Gates Foundation, which is helping to develop vaccines to fight neglected diseases around the world.
He also has a teenage daughter with autism and is caught in the middle of the "are vaccines linked to autism?" debate. But as a vaccine researcher, he's upset by the attacks on life-saving vaccines.
"The notion that a vaccine expert would deliberately cover up the cause of a growing public health problem cuts Peter Hotez to the quick. That narrative suggests that someone like him -- with firsthand knowledge of the devastation autism can cause a family -- would stand by idly as medical science knowingly allowed thousands of Rachels to be put through the suffering that she and her family have endured," The Post writes.
"This is not something that can be caused by a toxin after birth. This is a deeply patterned mis-wiring in the brain, and this is not how a toxin works," Peter Hotez says of autism. "It can only be a genetic condition that affects the whole neurobiology of development."
