The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to conduct a large-scale study to review whether there is a link between vaccines and autism, federal officials said Friday.
Dozens of scientific studies were unable to find evidence of the link. However, the CDC currently falls within the scope of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of Health and Human Services, who has long been skeptical about vaccine safety and has vowed to revisit the data.
“As President Trump said in his joint speech to Congress, the rate of autism among American children is rising sharply, and Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement Friday.
Nixon did not provide details about the scope or method of the project. News of the study was first reported by Reuters Friday morning.
In pursuit of research, the CDC defies the wishes of Senator Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health Committee. He said this week that further research into the supposed link between vaccines and autism is a waste of money and a distraction from studies that shed light on the “real reason” for rising autism rates.
“It's been thoroughly studied.” Dr. Cassidy said during a confirmation hearing of President Jay Batacharya, the National Institutes of Health candidate for President Jay Batacharya. “The more you pretend, the more problems you develop, the more likely your children will die from a vaccine-preventable disease.”
Dr. Bhatacharya said he was “confident” that there is no link between vaccines and autism from existing research, but he suggested that more research may ease the fears of nervous parents.
“Trump and Kennedy both follow their words,” said Zen Honeycutt, founder of nonprofit moms across the United States. “I hope that the previous administration made health and the autism epidemic a priority.”
News from the planned CDC study, which infected nearly 200 people and killed two due to low vaccination rates, is in the midst of a rapidly spreading measles outbreak in western Texas. Last year, around 82% of the kindergarten population in the most affected county received the measles vaccine, well below the 95% needed to prevent the outbreak. According to Texas health officials, 80 of the infected people have not been vaccinated, and 113 “are unknown about their vaccination status.”
In an interview with the CDC's plan to review whether autism is associated with vaccination, Xavier Becerra, health secretary to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “What I say is that the CDC can do a lot. They can walk and chew gum, but I hope that the CDC is being used to help us squeeze measles before we die unnecessarily.
The proportion of autism diagnosis in the United States is undoubtedly increasing. Data recently collected by the CDC from 11 states shows that CDC has one person compared to 150 children in 2000. Researchers believe that most surges are attributed to increased perceptions of disorders and changes in the way medical professionals classify them. However, scientists say there are other genetic and environmental factors as well. It could be a role.
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital, said in an email Friday. “Vaccinations are not one of them. Given the limited resources from the CDC, this is a sad day for children with autism.”
Like Kennedy, Trump has long supported the idea that vaccines are somehow linked to the rate of autism increase. He first raised the idea in 2007 and returned as a presidential candidate in 2015. He also said he supports Kennedy's reconsideration of the issue, citing the percentage of autism diagnosis during his speech to Congress on Tuesday.
“We're going to know what it is. No one is better than Bobby and all the people who work with you,” he said. “Bobby, good fortune. That's a very important job.”
Kennedy has earned a Senate confirmation as health secretary at the narrowest margin. Ultimately, he beat Cassidy, a Republican, primarily from Louisiana, and specialised in liver disease as a doctor and a strong supporter of the vaccine. On the second day of the confirmation hearing, Sen. Cassidy expressed deep concern about Kennedy's past vaccine questions, citing a study that found 1.2 million children had no connection between vaccines and autism.
Kennedy said the new study “showed the opposite.” A New York Times review of that study found it was funded, written and published by a network of vaccine skeptics close to Kennedy. When the study was rejected by various mainstream medical journals, Andrew Wakefield, author of a 1998 study linking vaccines to autism, helped find a home in journals published by several vaccine critics.
After his confirmation, Kennedy's first speech to staff included a pledge to study the rise in chronic illnesses in the United States, including reviewing vaccine schedules and reviewing vaccination schedules given to young children.
Christina Jewett contributed the report.
