claim: “The unvaccinated Amish rarely get cancer, autism, or heart disease.”
evidence: Posts on social media claim that not a single Amish child has been diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, or autism. Many of the posts include a screenshot of an article, published by Slay News on July 9, 2023, with the headline "Zero Amish Children Diagnosed with Cancer, Diabetes or Autism." [...] The claims are based on a senate testimony from tech entrepreneur turned anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch. According to the Slay News article, "a new comprehensive study has found that no Amish children have been diagnosed with chronic conditions that impact the rest of America." It states that Amish children are strictly 100 percent unvaccinated and rarely presented with any long-term diseases or lifelong disorders, including cancer, autism, heart disease and others. The study was allegedly presented by Steve Kirsch to the Pennsylvania State Senate. [...] Kirsch did give testimony in a Pennsylvania State Senate hearing on June 9, 2023. Talking about vaccines and the Amish, he said, "The Amish are a perfect example of a large group of people who are largely unvaccinated. And there is no – we can’t find an autistic kid who was unvaccinated. It’s very, very rare. In the Amish community, very, very rare. You won’t find transsexuals, you won’t find homosexuals. You won’t find kids with ADD, with auto-immune disease, with PANDAS, PANS, with epilepsy. You just don’t find any of these chronic diseases in the Amish."