CDC Changes Vaccine Safety Page to Promote Vaccine Misinformation, Cites Kennedy’s Anti-Vax Allies
It is the latest move by Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services to undermine vaccines.
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its vaccine safety page to include several discredited claims linking immunizations to autism in the latest signal that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. intends to target childhood immunizations.
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy promised he would “work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems” and “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.” These assurances, given to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, were enough to secure Kennedy the nation’s top public health role despite years of anti-vaccine advocacy and misinformation spreading. Since he took the helm of HHS, however, the department has been making moves that have fueled concern that unscientific changes to the schedule may be imminent.
On the secretary’s watch, HHS has terminated over $1 billion of dollars worth of research, including all mRNA vaccine research. It has sought to make COVID vaccines harder to get, eliminated key personnel, and seen longtime career scientists and public servants depart, making room fringe voices close to the secretary.
The CDC has seen drastic changes, including the replacement of its entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with Kennedy allies. Former CDC Director Susan Monarez, PhD, who Kennedy fired in August, testified before the Senate HELP Committee that her departure was preceded by a closed door meeting with the secretary at which she said he sought her blanket approval of any changes made by the new ACIP. She warned that changes to the vaccine schedule were coming.
The idea that vaccines cause autism largely originated with a fraudulent 1998 paper by disgraced physician Andrew Wakefield, a longtime ally of Kennedy’s. Wakefield recently spoke at the annual conference of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine advocacy dark money operation the secretary founded and left ahead of his 2024 presidential run. Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines, also spoke at the event.
The claim of a connection between childhood immunizations and autism has been widely debunked over the years, but anti-vaxxers like Kennedy have maintained that the science is not settled and a link may yet be found. Much of the focus from anti-vaxxers over the years has been on ingredients in some vaccines like aluminum and the organomercury compound thimerosal, both of which have been shown to be safe—and neither of which cause autism. At its June meeting, the new ACIP voted to recommend only flu vaccines without the ingredient despite widespread objections from the scientific community.
The CDC vaccine safety page update is the latest push by Kennedy’s HHS to promote the discredited connection between vaccines and autism. Atop the page are three “key points”:
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.
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.
While the page still maintains the heading “Vaccines do not cause autism,” there is now an asterisk after it alerting readers to the disclaimer at the bottom, noting that it had been kept “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”—an apparent reference to Cassidy. Further down, it highlights a number of routine vaccinations as potential culprits as autism causes, claiming more research is needed.
“Approximately one in two surveyed parents of autistic children believe vaccines played a role in their child’s autism, often pointing to the vaccines their child received in the first six months of life (Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP), Hepatitis B (HepB), Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), Poliovirus, inactivated (IPV), and Pneumococcal conjugate (PCV)) and one given at or after the first year of life (Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR)),” it reads. “This connection has not been properly and thoroughly studied by the scientific community.”
It further claims that “The rise in autism prevalence since the 1980s correlates with the rise in the number of vaccines given to infants,” adding that “Though the cause of autism is likely to be multi-factorial, the scientific foundation to rule out one potential contributor entirely has not been established.”
The link on the word “correlates” takes the reader to a page of the studies that includes one by Kennedy ally David Geier and his father Mark from 2004. In June, Kennedy hired the younger Geier, an anti-vaccine activist who does not have a medical degree and was disciplined in 2012 by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for practicing medicine without a license, to study vaccines and autism. Mark Geier, meanwhile, is a de-licensed physician and vaccine critic who was also disciplined for practicing without a license in Maryland.
Like Kennedy, both men have promoted the false claim that vaccines cause autism, highlighting thimerosal. The pair also famously developed supposed treatment for autism that used the drug Lupron, which has been used in high doses to chemically castrate sex offenders. Mark Geier called it a “miracle drug” but experts decried the protocol as “junk science.” The Geiers recommended their treatment for children.
The CDC page suggests that aluminum might cause autism and links out to papers by other Kennedy allies. One is by Dr. Paul Thomas, an anti-vax physician who surrendered his Oregon medical license due to unprofessional conduct and lost his Washington license as well, and researcher James Lyons-Weiler, whose LLC IPAK-EDU launched a medical journal in 2024 stacked with anti-vaxxers including Children’s Health Defense staffers. Kennedy cited a dubious study in the journal during his confirmation hearings to argue vaccines cause autism. The other cited paper is a review by current ACIP chairman Dr. Martin Kulldorff in the RealClear Foundation’s medical journal, which launched earlier this year with him as its founding editor-in-chief.
“The CDC has fully turned into the anti-vaccine personal mouthpiece of RFK Jr. and can no longer be trusted,” Accountability Journalist Institute scientific advisor Dr. Frank Han, a board certified pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist, told Important Context. “Those of us who still can push back and preserve public health are needed now more than ever.”
Public faith in vaccines has taken a hit in recent years as right-wing groups, media, and politicians worked to sow doubt in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Coinciding with a decline in childhood vaccination has been a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, which has killed three children this year.
This story is developing and will be updated as more information comes out.