The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has alarmed doctors about a change on its website that it says raises unfounded doubts about the safety of childhood vaccines.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dramatically changed the agency's position on the relationship between vaccines and autism.
CDC website now says there is a link between vaccines and autism cannot be ruled out. This is a departure from the CDC's long-standing position that there is no link.
The change comes even as the link between vaccines and autism has long been debunked by a large body of high-quality research. But Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. long promoted a discredited statement.
The CDC's change is alarming to public health experts. They are already concerned about declining childhood vaccination rates, which have led to a resurgence of dangerous childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been modified to promote false information that vaccines cause autism,” Dr. Susan J. Kressley, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement. “Since 1998, independent researchers in seven countries have conducted more than 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million people. The conclusion is clear and unambiguous: there is no connection between vaccines and autism.”
She went on to say, “Anyone who repeats this harmful myth is misinformed or deliberately trying to mislead parents. We call on the CDC to stop wasting government resources on spreading false claims that sow doubt about one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations.”
In a statement to NPR, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon repeated one of the changes to the website: “The claim that vaccines do not cause autism is not a valid claim because research has not ruled out the possibility that childhood vaccines cause autism.”
He said the department has “begun a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including studies of plausible biological mechanisms and potential causal relationships.”
“The new statement demonstrates a misunderstanding of the term 'evidence,'” the department said. Autism Science Foundation the organization said in a statement provided to NPR, adding: “No environmental factor has been better studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines.”
This statement is inherently confusing, said Dr. Paul Offittpediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s the usual anti-vaccine tropes, misrepresentation of research, false equivalence,” he says. “They might as well say that chicken nuggets can cause autism, because you can't prove it either.”
The changes to the website “blindsided” career scientists at the CDC, said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a former senior CDC official who left the agency in August. “Scientists were not involved in its creation,” he says. “And the data is unverified.”
Two current CDC employees who contacted NPR on Thursday say the updates are a clear warning sign that the vaccine information on the agency's website is no longer trustworthy and is instead “unscience.” They requested anonymity because they feared they could lose their jobs by speaking to the press.
The moves are the latest in a series of steps Kennedy has taken regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines that go against the views of mainstream medical and scientific organizations such as the Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians.
Vaccine advocates say the moves recklessly undermine public confidence in vaccines and increase vaccine hesitancy, putting the nation's children at risk. The US looks ready lose its status as a measles-eradicated country.
Earlier this year, Kennedy fired all members of the CDC's powerful Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with his own slate. In one of its first actions, the new advisory committee called for the elimination of the preservative thimerosal, used in a small portion of flu vaccines, although concerns about its safety were also debunked.
Under Kennedy, federal health agencies also made it harder for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and canceled grants to fund new vaccines based on the mRNA technology behind the most used COVID vaccines.
The Trump administration has also said there is a link between acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and autism, and has promoted the use of leucovorin, a prescription form of vitamin B9, to treat autism. although evidence to support this is scant.
An ACIP working group is currently studying broader changes to childhood vaccinations, including the removal of compounds that include aluminum used to improve the effectiveness of vaccines. These adjuvants have been used safely for almost a century. The committee is also studying splitting one shot is now given to protect against measles, mumps and rubella in one shot for individual frames.
Public health experts say both moves are scientifically unsound and would essentially upend the nation's childhood vaccination regime, leaving children vulnerable to diseases that have long been brought under control.
The committee also consider recommending delaying hepatitis B vaccination in children. For many years, all babies were vaccinated against hepatitis at birth. Hepatitis B can cause liver failure and liver cancer.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges in a footnote on its main web page on autism and vaccines that the headline still contains the words “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism*” and states that it “was not removed due to an agreement with the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that it would remain on the CDC website.”
NPR emailed Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy's office seeking comment but did not receive an immediate response. Cassidy chairs the Senate HELP Committee, which reviewed Kennedy's nomination to lead HHS and voted along party lines to support her.
Cassidy published on X Thursday afternoon: “I am a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases. What parents need to hear right now is that vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and do not cause autism. Any statement to the contrary is untrue, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans worse.”
