Amish people do vaccinate - and autism exists in Amish communities

A video posted to Facebook claims that the Amish “refuse all vaccines” and have “NO cases of autism [sic]”, adding that the “only cases” are among those who were adopted and did receive vaccines.

This is a common claim that has been circulating for many years, that we have written about before. But the evidence doesn’t support this.

Some claims point to a non-scientific article from 2005, but that article isn’t supported by genuine science, and reputable research shows that Amish people are vaccinated, and do have autism.

The post makes a number of other claims related to Amish people and their health, however we’ve chosen to focus here on the most common claims about vaccines and autism.

Do Amish communities get vaccinated?

Amish people do get vaccinated, but their vaccine uptake does tend to be lower than the wider population due to certain aspects of their lifestyle—namely living in remote communities and rejecting many modern technologies.

But there is evidence that they don’t “refuse all vaccines”. In 2011, researchers surveyed 359 Amish parents in Ohio and found that 85% accepted some immunisations for their children, with 68% saying all of their children had received at least one.

A 2021 survey of the same settlement found that, ten years later, that number had dropped to 41%.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University who looked into uptake of the Covid vaccine amongst the Amish have warned service providers and policy-makers “against assuming all Amish individuals are under- or un-vaccinated”, emphasising that “Amish identity does not always mean vaccination hesitancy”.

Does autism exist in Amish communities?

There’s not a lot of data showing how prevalent autism is in Amish communities, but evidence shows there are autistic Amish people.

A 2010 study, based in an Amish settlement in Indiana and in Holmes County, Ohio, found that one in 271 children had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), compared to an ASD rate of one in 91 children in the general US population at the time.

That’s lower, but, importantly, not zero.

It’s hard to say why this is, as research into this topic is very limited, but it could be a result of lower diagnosis rates.

Dr Douglas Vaughan, director of Northwestern University’s Potocsnak Longevity Institute, told Reuters in 2023 that based on his work with Amish families in northeastern Indiana, diagnosis rates were likely to be lower. “Their children only attend Amish schools through 8th grade, so they are not observed as children are in regular schools,” he noted.

While the data we have on vaccination rates and autism rates in Amish people is limited, we can say there’s no evidence that the two are linked or that one causes the other.

There is also no evidence that vaccines cause autism, as we’ve detailed in a previous fact check.

So why do people believe this?

The claim that Amish communities have no autism cases due to their supposedly non-existent vaccination uptake has been around for a while.

Many refer to a 2005 article published by the news agency United Press International (UPI).

Mr Olmsted’s article details his attempt to identify the percentage of autistic Amish people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The reporter conducted a non-scientific survey of the population and claimed to have found only three autistic people—noting that two of them had received vaccines.

But the article is not a scientific study, and is clearly contradicted by genuine research.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine say, “Vaccines do not cause autism. Many scientists have studied this question, but no credible studies show that autism is caused by vaccines.”

Health misinformation can cause direct damage to people’s physical or psychological health, and can put particular communities and vaccine coverage levels at risk.