What you need to know about CDC’s baseless new guidelines for autism

Rewrote pages on the CDC website to: assert a false claim Claims that vaccines can cause autism have sparked outrage and distress from doctors, scientists and parents. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy says it undermines the credibility of an agency long relied on for unbiased scientific evidence.

Many scientists and public health officials fear that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website, which baselessly claims health officials have previously ignored evidence linking vaccines and autism, portends a larger, more dangerous attack on childhood immunizations.

“This is not over,” said Helen Tager-Flusberg, professor emeritus of psychology and brain sciences at Boston University. She noted that Kennedy hired several longtime anti-vaccine activists and researchers to review vaccine safety at the CDC. She said the study would be due soon.

“They’re analyzing the data, and the results will say, ‘We’re going to show that vaccines cause autism,’” Tager-Flusberg said. advocacy group More than 320 autism scientists are concerned about Kennedy’s behavior.

Kennedy’s hand-picked vaccine advisory committee is scheduled to meet next month to discuss whether to abandon its recommendation that babies receive the hepatitis B vaccine within hours of birth and change the CDC-approved vaccination schedule. Kennedy argued: Scientists say it’s false. Vaccine ingredients cause disease In addition to autism, other conditions include asthma and peanut allergy.

The revised CDC webpage will be used to support efforts to eliminate most childhood vaccines, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Vaccine. “It’s a complete fabrication, but it will be cited as evidence,” she said.

Kennedy personally ordered changes to the website, he told the New York Times. CDC’s developmental disabilities group was not asked for comment on the changes, said Abigail Tighe, executive director of the National Public Health Coalition, which includes former employees of CDC and HHS.

Scientists scoffed at the site’s declaration that they “have not ruled out the possibility that childhood vaccines cause autism.” More than 25 large studies have found no link between vaccines and autism, but proving a negative is scientifically impossible, said David Mandell, director of the Autism Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The new statement on the webpage, which reads “Study supporting link was ignored by health officials,” clearly references the work of anti-vaccinationist David Geier and his father, Mark, who died in March, Mandell said. their research widely rejected They even mocked him. David Geyer One of our external experts Kennedy was hired by the CDC to review safety data.

Asked for evidence that scientists had suppressed studies showing a link, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon pointed out: previous reportSome of them required further research into possible links. Although asked for specific studies showing the connection, Nixon did not respond.

expert reaction

Infectious disease experts, pediatricians and public health officials criticized the changes to the CDC website. Although Kennedy made no secret of his disdain for established science, the change was intuitive because the CDC had always handled unbiased scientific information, they said.

Kennedy and his “nihilistic Dark Ages compatriots have transformed the CDC into an anti-vaccine propaganda machine,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“On the one hand, this isn’t surprising,” said Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at the University of Colorado. “On the other hand, this is an inflection point where it becomes clear that they are using the CDC as a device to spread lies.”

“The CDC website has had a lobotomy,” Atul Gawande, an author and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told KFF Health News.

“CDC is now a zombie organization,” said Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The agency has lost about a third of its staff this year. Entire departments were destroyed and their leadership sacked or forced to resign.

Daniel Jernigan, director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, said at a Nov. 19 news briefing that Kennedy was “shifting from evidence-based decision-making to decision-based evidence-making.” With Kennedy and his team, he said, the terminology, including “radical transparency” and “gold standard science,” was “flooded.”

Cassidy becomes quiet.

The new webpage appeared to openly mock Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Cassidy cast the tie-breaking vote after the committee for Kennedy’s confirmation said they had reached a consensus that the longtime anti-vaccination activist would not make major changes to the CDC’s vaccine policy once he takes office.

He said the agreement also included a promise not to remove a statement from the CDC’s website that vaccines do not cause autism.

The new autism page still displays the phrase “Vaccines do not cause autism,” but with an asterisk in the notice that the phrase has been kept on the site “due to an agreement” with Cassidy. The rest of the page contradicts the header.

“What Kennedy has done to the CDC website and to the American people is making Senator Cassidy a complete fool,” said Mark Rosenberg, a former CDC official and deputy chief surgeon general.

At the Capitol on November 19, before the CDC website was modified, Cassidy answered several unrelated questions from reporters, but ended the conversation with a question about the possibility that Kennedy’s Advisory Committee on Immunization would recommend newborn vaccination of the hepatitis B vaccine.

He said, “I have to go in,” and entered the hearing room without any reaction.

Cassidy expressed disappointment with the vaccine advisory committee’s actions, but avoided directly criticizing Kennedy or acknowledging that the secretary had broken promises made before the confirmation vote. Cassidy said even before Kennedy was confirmed, he had promised to maintain childhood vaccination schedules.

Senators criticized CDC website edits on November 20. post toAlthough he did not mention Kennedy.

“What parents need to hear right now is that vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe, effective and do not cause autism,” he said in the post. “Any statement to the contrary is wrong, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans sicker.”

Autism Science Foundation, Autism Society of America, Autism Self-Advocacy Networkissued a statement condemning the website.

“The CDC webpage contained information about how vaccines do not cause autism, but was changed yesterday,” ASAN said in a statement. “They say there is evidence that vaccines can cause autism. They say public health officials have been ignoring this evidence. This is a lie.”

Research Results

Parents often discover symptoms of autism after their child receives a series of vaccinations in the second year of life. “This is the natural history of autism symptoms,” Tager-Flusberg said. “But in their minds, the perfect child is suddenly taken away from them and they are looking for external reasons.”

Tager-Flusberg, who has studied autism since the 1970s, said that when speculation about a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, surfaced around 2000, “scientists did not ignore it.” “We were shocked and felt it was important to figure out how we could investigate quickly.”

Since then, research has clearly demonstrated that autism occurs as a result of genetics or fetal development. Although knowledge gaps persist, studies have identified preterm birth, older parents, viral infections, and use of certain medications during pregnancy. Even if it’s not TylenolEvidence so far suggests it is linked to an increased risk of autism.

But beyond the mountain of data showing the health risks of smoking, few scientific examples are more compelling than the many studies around the world that “have not proven that vaccines cause autism,” said Bruce Gellin, former director of the National Vaccine Program Office.

Jesse Goodman, a former FDA chief scientist and now a professor at Georgetown University, said the CDC website edits and other actions by Kennedy’s HHS would shake confidence in vaccines and lead to more illnesses.

This opinion was echoed by Alison Singer, the mother of an autistic adult and co-founder of the Autism Science Foundation. “If you’re a new mom and you don’t know the last 30 years of research, you might say, ‘The government says we need to study whether vaccines cause autism. Maybe we’ll wait until we know and not vaccinate,'” she said.

The CDC website is misleading parents, putting children at risk and taking resources away from promising leads, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Kennedy thinks he’s helping kids with autism, but he’s doing the opposite.”

Many critics say their only hope is that the cracks in President Donald Trump’s coalition government may turn away from Kennedy, who is known for his tangles with Republican senators and even some White House officials. In opinion polls, many The American public distrusts Kennedy They do not regard him as a health authority and as an authority on Trump himself. The approval rating has fallen. dramatically since he returned to the White House.

But anti-vaccine activists applauded the revised CDC webpage. “Finally, the CDC is starting to acknowledge the truth about this disease that affects millions of people,” said Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, an advocacy group that Kennedy founded and led before entering politics. fox news digital. “The truth is that there is no evidence or science behind the claim that vaccines do not cause autism.”

Céline Gounder, Amanda Seitz and Amy Maxmen contributed to this report.