Changes to the CDC Website Spark Concerns About Vaccine Safety
The public-facing website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was changed this week, breaking with scientific consensus and stating there could be a link between vaccines and autism.
The change has alarmed public health experts and medical providers across the country, who worry that such messaging will scare more parents away from vaccinating their children, opening the door to more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough.
The updated CDC webpage now says, “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” The page goes on to raise doubts about past research into vaccine safety, and says federal health agencies will look into a possible link between childhood vaccines and autism.
The updated page casts aside decades of research by scientists around the world, which has found no link between childhood vaccines and autism.
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Medical Groups Respond to the Changes
Medical groups swiftly denounced the CDC’s new vaccine language. Dozens of medical and public health groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, signed onto a joint statement condemning the CDC for “promoting the outdated, disproven idea that vaccines cause autism.”
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Susan Kressly, also issued a separate statement lambasting the CDC.
“We call on the CDC to stop wasting government resources to amplify false claims that sow doubt in one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations,” Kressly wrote.
Understanding the Science Behind Vaccines and Autism
Vaccine and autism researchers have previously told The Dallas Morning News that there are a couple reasons they’re sure there’s no link between vaccines and autism.
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Firstly, if vaccines did cause autism, that would’ve shown up in all types of previous research. If the link was true, for instance, comparisons of unvaccinated versus vaccinated populations would have different rates of autism. Repeated research has turned up no such link.
Secondly, researchers said, the timing doesn’t make sense. Signs of autism appear in early infancy, and research has found evidence that differences begin in the womb. This means that autism begins before a child is born, even if the diagnosis doesn’t come until later. That timing rules out vaccination, which happens after birth, as a cause of autism.
The Cumulative Effect of the Changes
The CDC falls under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is headed by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
NPR reported on Thursday that scientists at the CDC were blindsided by the change on the agency’s website. Kennedy then said in an interview, published by The New York Times on Friday, that he personally directed the website change.
Kennedy is among the most prominent vaccine skeptics in the country, and previously spent eight years at the helm of an anti-vaccine advocacy group that he co-founded. Because of this, public health experts and others have continuously warned that Kennedy may use his role in the federal government to unwind the vaccine infrastructure that previous administrations spent decades building.
Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, laughs with Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, in Houston.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Dr. Peter Hotez — who is the father of a daughter with autism and a doctor and vaccine researcher based at Baylor College of Medicine — said the CDC web page change is another step down that road.
“He’s weaponizing the CDC,” Hotez said of Kennedy. “Step by step by step, he’s seeking to undermine our nation’s vaccine ecosystem and undermine public confidence in vaccines.”
In isolation, Hotez said, the webpage change might not feel like a huge deal. But it didn’t happen in isolation. Hotez framed the change instead as part of a larger attack on vaccines, seen in previous moves such as Kennedy’s dismantling of a federal vaccine committee and his agency’s reversal on COVID vaccine recommendations.
“If you look at each of the individual things, they’re bad but they’re not game-changers,” Hotez said. “It’s the cumulative effect.”
Celebration-Worthy?
Some medical freedom advocates, including the group that Kennedy previously led, celebrated the change to the CDC webpage this week.
In Texas, healthy food blogger and medical freedom advocate Nina Miller said in an email exchange that the website change marks “an important shift.” She and other medical freedom advocates, Miller wrote, are “cautiously optimistic” about the direction that federal health officials are going.
