NEW YORK (AP) — A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been changed to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, spurring outrage among a number of public health and autism experts.
The CDC “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”
The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.
It was immediately decried by scientists and advocates who have long been focused on finding the causes of autism.
“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.
Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism. “The conclusion is clear and unambiguous,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement Thursday.
“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,” she said.
The CDC has, until now, echoed the absence of a link in promoting Food and Drug Administration-licensed vaccines.
But anti-vaccines activists — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who this year became secretary of Health and Human Services — have long claimed there is one.
It’s unclear if anyone at CDC was actually involved in the change, or whether it was done by Kennedy’s HHS, which oversees the CDC.
Many at CDC were surprised.
“I spoke with several scientists at CDC yesterday and none were aware of this change in content,” said Dr. Debra Houry, who was part of a group of CDC top officials who resigned from the agency in August. “When scientists are cut out of scientific reviews, then inaccurate and ideologic information results.”
The updated page does not cite any new research. It instead argues that past studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.
“HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links. Additionally, we are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, in an email Thursday.
A number of former CDC officials have said that what CDC posts about certain subjects — including vaccine safety — can no longer be trusted.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who also resigned from the agency in August, told reporters Wednesday that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making.”
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, earlier this year played a decisive role in approving Kennedy’s nomination for HHS secretary. Cassidy initially voiced misgivings about Kennedy, but in February said Kennedy had pledged — among other things — not to remove language from the CDC website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.
The new site continues to have a headline that says “Vaccines do not cause autism,” but HHS officials put an asterisk next to it. A note at the bottom of the page says the phrasing “has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.”
Cassidy’s spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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