This pulls together (1) child‑vaccination coverage was already near‑universal and largely income‑agnostic by the early 1980s, while (2) early cordless‑/cell‑phone ownership was sharply skewed to affluent households. The contrast makes it hard to blame vaccines—but easy to see how wireless roll‑outs created the first autism clusters in wealthy families and only later filtered down the income ladder.
Vaccines: Universal by Law, ≥95 % Coverage Across Classes
| 1970‑80 timeline | What happened | Why income gaps were tiny |
|---|---|---|
| 1971‑1980 | Every state passed school‑entry immunization laws (measles, polio, DTP, etc.). By 1981 the CDC reported “immunization levels of students entering schools have been ≥95 %.” | School mandates applied to all children—public, private, rich, poor. Proof of shots = ticket to class. |
| Free public clinics | City/county health departments offered walk‑in vaccine days; Medicaid (1965) covered pediatric shots; WIC referred low‑income parents for free vaccines. | Low‑income families could vaccinate at no cost; middle‑income paid little; rich paid private physicians. (WIC immunization‑referral framework later formalized but clinics already active.) |
| Coverage checks | Rubella survey of 3.4 million kindergarten/1st‑grade records (1981‑82): 96 % immune regardless of SES. | Poverty didn’t stop compliance because the shots were cheap, mandated, and widely available. |
Bottom line: by the time the autism graph even began to wiggle (mid‑1980s) U.S. vaccination rates were already flat‑top high in every neighborhood. If vaccines were the trigger, incidence should have risen more or less evenly across class and race from day one—which it did not.
Wireless: Luxury First, Everyone Later
| Year | Adoption metric | Income skew |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Fewer than 340 k U.S. cellular subscribers; handsets cost $3,000–$4,000. | Purchasers were overwhelmingly corporate execs & high‑income professionals (industry sales data; CTIA historical series). |
| 1990 | ~5 million wireless subscribers (< 2 % of population). | Still an elite product; marketing targeted “business class.” |
| 1995–1997 | Subscribers jump to 55 million, but Pew surveys show ownership 2–3 × higher in $75 k+ households than in <$30 k homes. | Price of service/handsets still a barrier for poor & lower‑middle class. |
| 2000s | Prices collapse; prepaid & budget carriers appear; Wi‑Fi routers $49 at Walmart. | Gap closes—by 2011 smartphone ownership in <$30 k homes has nearly caught mid‑income groups, entering today’s near‑saturation phase. |
Key point: for at least 15 years (≈ 1983‑1998) chronic in‑home RF exposure was heavily concentrated in wealthy, mostly white families—the same demographic that posted the earliest autism spikes. Vaccines never exhibited that socioeconomic gating.
Why the Data Matter
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No “first‑mover” effect for vaccines. If the shots were the cause, the first big autism uptick should have been evenly distributed; instead it was class‑stratified.
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Wireless shows the right diffusion curve. Environmental exposure began in a small, affluent slice of the population and then expanded outward exactly as autism prevalence did.
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School laws vs. Market forces. Vaccination equality was created by laws; wireless inequality was created by price. That alone explains which factor can produce an early class‑specific health signal.
