Agreed. That was my first thought, too. Part of the reason that these silly vaccine/autism conspiracy theories are hard to shut down is the fact that Autism is harder to detect pre-vaccination, so there's confirmation bias here among parents of Autistic children.
If this study provides nice evidence to the Anti-Vax crowd that Autism can be measured and detected well before vaccination age, this might help take some of the wind out of the sails of the movement.
Of course, for many, science won't help, much like usable retroreflectors will only break down the fantasy for a subset of moon landing conspiracy theorists, but if it gets brought up even once in a Whole Foods somewhere, they've done a good thing.
In the other comment thread that got shadow-banned, someone pointed out that there are several vaccinations recommended by 2 months of age [1]. I remember my child getting the first one before leaving the hospital (HepB [2]).
Well, first, you have to believe that the EEG's predictor model is accurate and trustworthy.
You have to trust those prescribing it, which, if you don't trust the advice of a doctor with a needle, would you trust them with a brain scan that labels your child defective, before they can even talk?
Some people (those who might consider skipping vaccinations) might avoid such an exam entirely, and choose to wait until their child is age 10 or 15, to decide whether they have some sort of problem with their social skills, or worse.
People adjust for perceived risk. For example, seatbelts and airbags make people less careful when driving.
Vaccination makes people less careful about disease. There is no vaccine for enterovirus-68, which sometimes paralyses people. There is no vaccine for adenovirus-36, which is a cause of obesity. I could go on for a long time I think; lots of "harmless" viruses are turning out to cause serious problems. They can damage your heart, set off dementia, or give you cancer.
The only effective answer is avoidance. This requires learning and behavior modification, so it isn't too popular, but nothing else is as effective.
I'm having a [Poe's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law) moment here. You've just applied Abstinence Only Sex Education 'logic' to infectious disease. This is either brilliant satire of the odd arguments against harm reduction in general, or... you're serious, and I agree, it's a crying shame nobody taught all those poor smallpox victims how to modify their behavior.
