Spot-on with the conspiracy theorists I deal with most in real life, as parent of an autistic: anti-vaccination-ers.
Raising children does funny things to human cognition (for good evolutionary reasons). Raising a disabled child is even tougher psychologically, and finding someone to blame (in their case, amoral-profit-seeking Big Pharma and regulatory capture) provides psychological comfort.
I see this less as blame deflection (since there is no official narrative to refute) and more of a frustrated pattern matching mechanism. The rise in autism rates is baffling and demands an explanation, and people who are close to the issue are going to seize on one just to protect their own psyche from relentless and fruitless questioning.
Spot-on with the conspiracy theorists I deal with most in real life, as parent of an autistic: anti-vaccination-ers.
Raising children does funny things to human cognition (for good evolutionary reasons). Raising a disabled child is even tougher psychologically, and finding someone to blame (in their case, amoral-profit-seeking Big Pharma and regulatory capture) provides psychological comfort.
I see this less as blame deflection (since there is no official narrative to refute) and more of a frustrated pattern matching mechanism. The rise in autism rates is baffling and demands an explanation, and people who are close to the issue are going to seize on one just to protect their own psyche from relentless and fruitless questioning.