Extracts below. Read online: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/health/cdc-kennedy-vaccine-disinforma...
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Children’s Health Defense, founded by the health secretary, had published online a vaccine-safety page that looked like the agency’s but that suggested links to autism.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he founded to take down a web page that mimicked the design of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s site but laid out a case that vaccines cause autism.
The page had been published on a site apparently registered to the nonprofit, the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. Mr. Kennedy’s action came after The New York Times inquired about the page and after news of it ricocheted across social media.
The page was taken offline Saturday evening...
It was not clear why the anti-vaccine group might have published a page mimicking the C.D.C.’s. The organization did not respond to requests for comment, and Mr. Kennedy has said he severed ties with it when he began his presidential campaign in 2023.
The fake vaccine safety page was practically indistinguishable from the one available on the C.D.C.’s own site. The layout, typefaces and logos were the same, perhaps in violation of federal law...
Mr. Kennedy has for years maintained that there is a link between vaccines and autism. He held to that stance during his Senate confirmation hearings, despite extensive research debunking the theory.
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org