Public health officials react to new CDC vaccine language
Public health officials are enraged new language on the CDC website suggesting vaccines could cause autism.
In a rare show of disagreement, Wisconsin Department of Health Services expressed deep concern with language coming out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on its new stance on vaccinations and autism, a move that revives a long-disproven connection as potentially linked.
DHS Secretary Kirsten Johnson said the message promotes false information that is not only irresponsible, but dangerous to public safety.
“To put it simply: This is a fundamental distortion of science and the truth,” Johnson said Nov. 21.
On Nov. 19, the federal public health agency’s website said the claim, “Vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based statement because studies on infant vaccines haven’t “ruled out the possibility” that vaccines cause autism. Further, it said health authorities have “ignored” studies that supported the link.
But public health experts say there’s good reason those studies have been ignored. The scientific community thoroughly debunked the most consequential study of its kind as fraudulent and, two years after its publication, the article was retracted by the medical journal The Lancet in 2010.
Despite the public retraction, the damage was done: Trust in the medical community waned and the link has persisted.
Johnson referenced those debunked studies in her reaction to the recast vaccine-autism link.
“Not only were the studies that originally suggested any connection found to be fabricated, but high-quality studies around the world continue to conclude that there is no link between vaccines and autism,” she said. “It is irresponsible and dangerous for a trusted health agency to continue to promote this myth and knowingly put the health of families, especially children, at risk.”
Prior to the change, the agency’s website said, “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder” and “No links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and (autism spectrum disorder),” according to the archive site WayBack Machine.
Vaccines have long been a touchstone of the CDC, especially in their use among children both in the U.S. and abroad. But since Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a public vaccine skeptic, has been at the helm of the U.S. public health agency, his skepticism has entered mainstream public health decisions.
And the shift comes months after his first press conference when Kennedy announced a push to find a cause for autism. Crucially, Kennedy dismissed the findings of a new report on autism prevalence from the CDC published April 15.
The report showed that rates of autism had increased to one in 31 among 8-year-olds across Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring sites, including Wisconsin. The report concluded the increased prevalence can reflect differing practices in autism spectrum diagnosis evaluation and identification, as well as the availability and accessibility of services.
Kennedy repeatedly bucked the report’s conclusion, calling it a “canard,” or unfounded rumor, on multiple occasions. And he blamed mainstream media for capitulating to what he called “the myth of epidemic denial.”
“One of the things we need to move away from today is this ideology that … the autism prevalence increases, the relentless increases, are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition of changing diagnostic criteria,” Kennedy said in April.
Then, in September, Kennedy appeared with President Donald Trump for a White House press conference to make the connection between pregnant women taking Tylenol and autism. Trump repeatedly warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol. By the end of October, however, Kennedy softened the message and said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to say Tylenol causes autism.
The ongoing rhetoric has caused outrage among autistic people and advocates in the autism community. It’s led to increased stigma and caused harm, Erin Miller previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Miller co-chairs the Constituent Advisory Committee of the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at the Waisman Center in Madison.
“When our leaders who have this massive microphone are saying it’s a horror show to live with autism, it really affects our relationships and our ability to live a rich, fulfilling life,” Miller said.
That sentiment was shared by Johnson, who concluded in her press release that parents and members of the autism community “deserve accurate, credible information.”
