A viral video claiming that autism did not exist in Vietnam until Bill Gates introduced vaccines in the country has been debunked by health experts and fact-checkers.
The clip features Dr. Anthony Phan, a California-based physician, who claims autism cases in Vietnam have increased by more than 300 percent since the introduction of a vaccination program supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The video resurfaced on Instagram on October 31, after the account mindsetofresistance shared it with a caption claiming that autism was absent in Vietnam in 1975 and only appeared after the vaccination program began. The same footage had also circulated widely on X earlier in October.
What the Doctor Claimed
In the video, Phan links Bill Gates and his foundation’s vaccination work in Vietnam to an alleged increase in autism cases.
He claims that autism did not exist in the country in 1975 or even in 2000 and 2001, but that cases have since risen by more than 300 percent.
However, the footage is several years old. It has circulated on Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and X in both English and Vietnamese since at least 2019.
The video also carries a watermark from the anti-vaccine documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe, directed by Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield’s medical licence was revoked after an investigation found serious problems with his research linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism. The journal The Lancet later retracted his 1998 study.
Phan left Vietnam as a child in 1975 and does not specialize in autism. He has not provided evidence to support his claims.
What Experts Say About Autism in Vietnam
Vietnamese health experts have rejected the suggestion that vaccines cause autism.
Quyet Minh Nguyen, a psychiatrist at Vietnam’s National Children’s Hospital, told AFP that there is no established link between vaccination and autism in Vietnam or elsewhere.
He described claims that vaccines cause autism as unscientific.
Autism was formally recognized in Vietnam only in the late 1990s. However, the absence of an established diagnosis before that period does not mean the condition did not exist.
Diagnosing autism requires trained professionals and medical resources that were not widely available in Vietnam at the time.
Cong Tran, a professor at Vietnam National University who has studied autism for two decades, said he works with adults in their 30s and 40s who have autism. Their experiences indicate that the condition existed in Vietnam long before it was formally recognized.
Tran also rejected the claim of a 300 percent increase, saying there was no reliable basis for the figure.
Vietnam does not have official nationwide statistics establishing the alleged increase. A national survey published in 2021 by researchers at Hanoi University of Public Health estimated that approximately one in every 132 children in the country had autism.
The Gates Foundation has also rejected the viral allegation, saying the claims are false.
Do Vaccines Cause Autism?
No. Extensive scientific research has found no evidence that vaccines cause autism.
A 2002 study involving 537,303 children in Denmark found no difference in autism risk between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
Another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2015 examined more than 90,000 children and found that the MMR vaccine did not increase autism risk.
Researchers say the increase in recorded autism cases in many countries is largely linked to greater awareness, improved screening and broader diagnostic criteria.
Changes in how autism is classified have also affected comparisons across different periods. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association brought several previously separate diagnoses under the broader category of autism spectrum disorder.
Why This Matters for Pakistan
False claims linking vaccines to autism can increase vaccine hesitancy, particularly among parents who are already uncertain about immunization.
Pakistan faces a serious challenge in this regard. It and Afghanistan remain the only two countries where wild poliovirus is endemic.
The World Health Organization has extended travel restrictions on Pakistan because of continued polio transmission. Vaccine refusals remain one of the major obstacles to eliminating the disease.
Health misinformation shared without context can make these efforts even harder.
Parents should rely on qualified medical professionals and credible health authorities when evaluating claims about vaccines. A child showing signs of autism should be assessed by a pediatrician or developmental specialist.
Support services are also expanding in Pakistan. Sindh opened the country’s first residential autism center in Karachi earlier this year.
