WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday publicly reversed its stance that vaccines do not cause autism, over the objections of career staff and counter to years of scientific evidence.
A CDC webpage that previously said there’s no link between autism and vaccines was quietly updated to call that claim “not evidence based,” among other statements that are not factual.
The updated page did not go through normal scientific clearance, Daniel Jernigan, a top CDC leader who resigned in August, told STAT, citing conversations with CDC staff. Another person familiar with the situation, not authorized to speak publicly, also said that the CDC office that manages the page was not involved in the decision.
The former head of the CDC center that oversees immunization policy and implementation concurred.
“From my personal communications with folks, everyone was blindsided from the perspective of career scientists,” said Demetre Daskalakis, who was director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases until he quit in August at the same time as Jernigan.
The changes are the latest move by the federal health department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to sow doubt about childhood vaccines. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has for years pushed the discredited idea that there is a link between vaccines and a rise in autism cases.
“All I can say is ‘Wake up, America. This administration wants to take your vaccines away from you. And they’re on a path to do that,’” Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, home of the Vaccine Integrity Project, said in an interview.
Here is how we know that vaccines do not cause autism
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told STAT that studies supporting a link between vaccines and autism “have been ignored by health authorities,” echoing a claim on the CDC page.
“HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links,” HHS said in a statement. According to HHS, federal lawmakers were informed in advance of the change.
Multitudes of studies have been conducted over decades to look for a link between autism and various vaccines or components of vaccines, such as the preservative thimerosal or the adjuvant aluminum. They have failed to find compelling evidence of a link.
“The conclusion is clear and unambiguous: There’s no link between vaccines and autism,” Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement. “Anyone repeating this harmful myth is misinformed or intentionally trying to mislead parents.”
Kressly said that more than 40 studies involving 5.6 million people have been conducted to disprove any link.
The changes to the CDC website appear to violate at least the spirit of a promise Kennedy made during his confirmation hearing to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whose vote sealed Kennedy’s approval, that “CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”
In fact, the website maintains a header reading “Vaccines do not cause autism*”, though the text of the page has been entirely altered to dispute that claim.
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At the very bottom of the page is an explanation for the asterisk: It says the subhead could not be removed due to the agreement with Cassidy. The senator has not responded to STAT’s request for comment.
In a post on X on Thursday afternoon, Cassidy weighed in, without mentioning the CDC or Kennedy by name.
“What parents need to hear right now is vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and will not cause autism,” he said. “Any statement to the contrary is wrong, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans sicker.”
It is not the first time that Kennedy has reneged on assurances he gave Cassidy to secure the senator’s support for his confirmation, but it is perhaps the most brazen. In June, Kennedy dismissed a panel of federal vaccine advisers and handpicked replacements, including several with anti-vaccine views.
Cassidy said Kennedy had promised to maintain the recommendations of that panel, known as ACIP, without changes, but former CDC Director Susan Monarez told Congress that Kennedy had pressured her to accept their recommendations before reviewing their evidence. The CDC is currently led by acting Director Jim O’Neill, who is also deputy secretary of HHS.
Cassidy, a physician, expressed concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, but ultimately voted to confirm him.
Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group once led by Kennedy, celebrated the change Thursday morning.
“Finally, the CDC is beginning to acknowledge the truth about this condition that affects millions, disavowing the bold, long-running lie that ‘vaccines do not cause autism,’” Mary Holland, president and CEO of the group, said in a statement. “No studies have ever proved this irresponsible claim; on the contrary, many studies point to vaccines as the plausible primary cause of autism.”
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Instructions to change the website came from HHS, Jernigan said. The CDC scientific staff who were notified of the pending change protested that the information should not be posted, but they were overruled, he added, saying that many of the scientific leaders who remain at the CDC were unaware that the website was about to be changed.
Some CDC staffers spent Thursday morning trying to learn more about how the changes were made and who was behind them, according to one person familiar with the efforts. Daskalakis said he’d heard some were in tears when they discovered the altered webpage.
Public health experts warned that the CDC is no longer a trustworthy source of vaccine information.
“It comes not as a shock but it’s hard to believe that on the CDC website we have disinformation,” said Kathryn Edwards, a Vanderbilt professor emerita of pediatrics who is part of the university’s vaccine research program.
Daskalakis said the page will advance Kennedy’s efforts to undermine confidence in vaccines.
“They’ve weaponized CDC to be able to achieve their ends,” he said.
The CDC webpage states that the changes were made in compliance with the Data Quality Act, which mandates that federal agencies ensure the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information they share with the public.
“Scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism,” the website says. “However, this statement has historically been disseminated by the CDC and other federal health agencies within HHS to prevent vaccine hesitancy.”
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Osterholm sees the change as part of a plan to get autism into the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which he said would bankrupt the program and force manufacturers of childhood vaccines out of the U.S. market.
“I think it’s almost unimaginable to think that we may one day have a country where there are no vaccines available because the companies won’t make it due to liability,” he said.
For Elio McCabe, policy director at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, the website changes are a grim reminder of the community’s long struggle against misinformation.
“In the autism community, we have already spent years battling the idea that vaccines have a causal link to autism,” he said. “It is dystopian to see such wrong and hurtful rhetoric attributed to what was once one of our most trustworthy federal agencies.”
O. Rose Broderick contributed reporting.