A tweak to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website suggesting there’s a link between vaccines and autism came directly from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he says.
Kennedy told The New York Times he personally ordered the language change. There’s no evidence to support the claim.
Kennedy tried to thread the needle in his interview with the Times, emphasizing that he’s not saying vaccines cause autism, rather that he doesn’t believe the claim that they don’t.
“The whole thing about ‘vaccines have been tested and there’s been this determination made,’ is just a lie,” he said, repeating a long-debunked theory.
RFK Jr. does not have a medical degree or a background in science.
On Wednesday, at RFK’s direction, the CDC amended a website dedicated to “Autism and Vaccines” to suggest there’s a causal link between the two. (There’s not.)
“The statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim,” the website now reads. “Scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism. However, this statement has historically been disseminated by the CDC and other federal health agencies within HHS to prevent vaccine hesitancy.”
Prior to Wednesday, the page explicitly stated that there is “no link” between autism and vaccines, nor are there any links between ingredients in the vaccines and the condition.
There is no single cause of autism, according to the National Institutes of Health. Multiple factors, including genetics, likely play a role.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who resigned from the role earlier this year, called Kennedy’s “update” a national embarrassment.
“The weaponization of the voice of CDC is getting worse,” he wrote on social media. “DO NOT TRUST THIS AGENCY. This is a national embarrassment.”