"Two weeks ago, by inserting what must be the most notorious asterisk in modern public health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caveated its long-standing position that vaccines do not cause autism. Under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a C.D.C. web page now contends that this is "not an evidence-based claim" and that research linking vaccines to autism has been "ignored by health authorities.""
"The Department of Health and Human Services maintains that it is hewing to "gold standard, evidence-based science"-a piece of doublespeak so thick that it might unsettle Orwell. Discounting dozens of rigorous studies that have analyzed millions of patients and failed to connect vaccines to autism, the C.D.C. website claims that about half of parents of children with autism believe vaccines contributed to that autism. It cited a decades-old paper that surveyed a few dozen parents who strongly embraced alternative medicine,"
Under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the CDC caveated its long-standing position that vaccines do not cause autism, labeling that conclusion "not an evidence-based claim" and asserting research linking vaccines to autism has been "ignored by health authorities." An agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy kept the original statement in place after his confirmation, but the HHS moved to contradict decades of evidence. Medical groups including the Autism Science Foundation and the American Medical Association expressed alarm. HHS claimed adherence to "gold standard, evidence-based science" while citing parental beliefs and a small, decades-old survey to justify further funding and appointments sympathetic to vaccine skepticism.
Read at The New Yorker
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