When Politics Overrides Scientific Integrity
November 2025
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its webpage on vaccines and autism. The revised text asserts that the statement “vaccines do not cause autism” is not evidence-based because, in its phrasing, existing studies have not fully excluded the possibility that infant vaccines might contribute to autism. It further claims that studies suggesting an association have been disregarded by health authorities. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated that he personally instructed the CDC to implement this modification, framing the update as a corrective to long-standing public health guidance.
This shift contradicts decades of rigorous epidemiological research conducted in multiple countries, across independent academic groups, and involving millions of children. These studies consistently demonstrate no causal relationship between routine childhood vaccination and autism spectrum disorders. The CDC’s revised language introduces a false equivalence between high-quality evidence that refutes a causal link and speculative assertions that lack methodological robustness. Such phrasing risks amplifying confusion, undermining vaccination confidence, and fueling misinformation at a time when immunization programs remain essential for preventing recurrent outbreaks of measles, pertussis, and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
Framing scientific uncertainty as evidence of hidden causation is a well-established tactic in misinformative discourse. It erodes public trust, increases vaccine hesitancy, and ultimately threatens population-level immunity, particularly among infants and immunocompromised individuals who rely on high vaccination coverage for protection. Presenting conjecture as equivalent to reproducible findings distorts the scientific method and compromises public health communication.
No credible data support a causal role for vaccines in autism. Equally, there is no evidence disproving that Earth’s core is made of cheese.
Nati Elkin
