The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Nov. 20, changed wording on its website advisory page about vaccines to suggest it is an open question whether they cause autism. Since then Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, has objected to this. He said at one point, “Life is lived forward. What I have to do is do my best to reassure the American people that vaccines are safe. We have to work against unfortunate attempts to undermine faith.”
On Nov. 19 Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ordered the CDC to “update” its website page on vaccine safety, to pose the association with autism. The CDC page used to read, “Vaccines do not cause autism.” The new page cavils: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.” This page points to a study by a University of Colorado, Boulder environmental scientist who has also written for RFK’s Children’s Health Defense newsletter, part of the RFK-associated network of anti-science publicists. This study claimed to find a correlation between the use of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines and rising autism in the 1980s and 1990s.
In early December RFK’s handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet to discuss aluminum adjuvants in vaccines. This panel could recommend that vaccine manufacturers remove these aluminum adjuvants, which would take these vaccines out of circulation and could take months or even years for a replacement vaccine to be developed, tested, and approved for use.
In brief, the aluminum ingredient is not kitchen foil. The aluminum adjuvants are added to boost the patient’s immune response. Aluminum is naturally present in many foods including vegetables, tea, chocolate, etc. Most infants are exposed to significantly larger amounts of aluminum in breast milk and baby formula than they will ever get from vaccines. Dozens of scientific studies have shown no link between vaccines and autism including the Danish study of 1.2 million children that was released in July.
In light of this, the new RFK CDC wording, that studies showing the link between vaccines, aluminum and autism have been “ignored,” is inaccurate: They have been debunked.
The persistent anti-vaccine drumbeat and hysteria have caused one in six Americans to reject or delay vaccinations for their children according to a September poll. Florida Surgeon General Joseph Abiodun Ladapo vowed to end school vaccine mandates. This reduced vigilance has so far caused the highest number of measles cases in the U.S. in 33 years.
