Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has stirred up hornet’s nest after holding childhood vaccines responsible for the growing cases of autism in India.

Citing a controversial study that linked childhood vaccination to autism spectrum disorder, Vembu advised parents to take the analysis seriously.

“Parents should take this analysis seriously. I believe there is increasing evidence that we are giving way too many vaccines to very young children. This is spreading in India too and we are seeing a rapid increase in autism in India,” he wrote on X.

The Indian billionaire, made a similar statement last year questioning why babies need to be vaccinated against Hepatitis B, drawing the ire of netizens.

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This time too, the post has stirred a heated debate online. Members of medical fraternity have especially expressed their disdain over the report, authored by controversial authors Peter McCullough and Andrew Wakefield. While the former’s earlier claims about vaccine safety and pandemic management were debunked by scientists, the latter’s 1998 study claiming a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism had to retracted from The Lancet.

While the comments elicited mixed response from social media users, many in the health fraternity slammed Vembu for his irresponsible behaviour and sharing the unverified info.

Here’s what the health experts are saying

Calling Zoho founder’s comments ‘utterly irresponsible’, a reputed neonatologist said that such advice could result in an infectious disease crisis.

“This is utterly irresponsible. Luckily people don’t listen to folk like you otherwise we would have a infectious disease crisis on our hands,” wrote Dr Amit Gupta, Clinical Lead for Neonatal Care, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. (Hon.).

However, the entrepreneur questioned his expertise in the matter, saying being a hyper specialist he could not scientifically understand long-term effects of shots in young babies.

Vembu replied to Dr Gupta defended his comment saying: “You are a hyper specialist in neo-natal care. You cannot possibly scientifically know all the long term effects of every shot we give young babies because you do not clinically see those neo-natal babies once they grow out of that stage.”

“Please cultivate an open curious mind doctor – professional arrogance arising from your institutional pedigree is completely unbecoming of a scientist. Your kind of hyper-specialization is itself a serious crisis in medicine today,” he wrote further.

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Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a Specialist in Hepatology and Liver Transplant Medicine, popularly known as The Liver Doc on social media urged people to “not stop vaccinating your children.”

“For the public and patients, please do not stop vaccinating your children. You don’t want polio to come back. You don’t want measles to kill your child like it is doing in the US because boomer uncles in charge of US Health Departments have become anti science,” he wrote.

“The conclusions of this study are not credible either. The “authors” who themselves are a bunch of antivaxxers, funded by an antivaxx organization, who published the study on their own antivaxx website. Not peer reviewed, not scrutinized,” he added.

Dr. Siva Anoop Yella, a psychiatrist in Hyderabad blasted Vembu for irresponsible behaviour.

“With such an irresponsible behavior quoting one study😑. No wonder arratai is not clicking much in India,” he wrote.

“The evidence is conflicting at best. There has been one recent large scale analysis that has suggested this may have some veracity – all previous studies linking vaccines and autism have failed to prove a link. One needs to be cautious as vaccinations have definitely made a difference to childhood infections, mortality and morbidity,” wrote Dr Ennapadam Srinivas Krishnamoorthy,
Behavioural Neurologist and Neuropsychiatrist.

“I have a lot of respect for what you do. I am sure your post was in good faith. I had open mind and tried to look at the study but it turns out to be a dead end. Can you please clarify the evidence? It’s too big a comment from an influential person like yourself,” wrote Dr Karthikeyan Srinivasan, Consultant Anaesthesiologist, Asst Prof (UCD).

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