https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/11/20/cdc-vaccines-autism-web...
'The CDC’s website now says health authorities ignored evidence of a potential connection between vaccines and autism, despite dozens of studies showing no link.'
'The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repudiated its past insistence that vaccines do not cause autism after decades of fighting misinformation linking the two, blindsiding career staff and delighting anti-vaccine activists.
'The agency’s website on vaccines and autism, updated Wednesday, now makes several false claims about a connection, echoing longtime rhetoric from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a lengthy history of disparaging vaccines and linking them to autism.
'Career scientists at the agency responsible for information about vaccine safety and autism had no prior knowledge about the changes to the website and were not consulted, according to five agency officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation...
'The current CDC page says that studies supporting a link between vaccines and autism “have been ignored by health authorities.”...
'The revisions show that the “CDC cannot currently be trusted as a scientific voice,” said Demetre Daskalakis, who formerly led the agency’s center responsible for respiratory viruses and immunizations. He was one of three senior leaders who resigned in August because of what they said was the politicization of science at the agency. “The weaponization of the CDC voice by validating false claims on official websites confirms what we have been saying,” he said...
“My question is, how language that misrepresents decades of research ended up on a CDC website,” said Debra Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer who also resigned in August. “Public health communication must be accurate, evidence-based and free from political distortion. Anything less erodes trust and puts lives at risk.”'
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