The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed a claim on its website about vaccines not causing autism.
Republican members of Congress pushed back on Thursday — albeit lightly — on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s controversial update to its webpage on vaccines and autism.
On Wednesday, the CDC changed its website, walking back assurances that vaccines do not cause autism and upending decades of work by the agency to combat misinformation about vaccines and autism.
The changed website specifically called out Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who cast a critical vote to confirm HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after clashing with him over vaccines. Cassidy responded to the change Thursday with a strong endorsement of vaccines, but in an interview with Punchbowl News, declined to say he regrets voting to confirm Kennedy.
“Life is lived forward. What I have to do is do my best to reassure the American people that vaccines are safe,” Cassidy said. “We have to work against unfortunate attempts to undermine faith.”
Kennedy was a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement for years before becoming HHS secretary.
Cassidy, addressing reporters on Thursday, said he had spoken with Kennedy about the change but declined to give details about the conversation.
The website says: “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.”
It also includes an asterisked header that reads “Vaccines do not cause Autism,” and an accompanying reference to Cassidy: “The header ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.”
Cassidy said in February that he made agreements with Kennedy which led to his decision to confirm him, including that “CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”
“This is a common-sense update that brings CDC’s website in line with our commitment to transparency and gold standard science,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “As the updated page explains, the claim that ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not supported by comprehensive evidence, as studies to date have not definitively ruled out potential associations.”
Many large studies have found no link between vaccines and autism. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, a trustee of the American Medical Association, which represents a large swath of America’s doctors, stressed that “extensive and rigorous studies consistently show that vaccines are safe.”
“Despite recent changes to the CDC website, an abundance of evidence from decades of scientific studies shows no link between vaccines and autism,” Fryhofer said in a statement.
Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases who resigned from the agency in August, criticized the website change in sharp terms Thursday.
“We cannot trust CDC anymore,” Daskalakis said. “It is being weaponized and weaponized more and more.” Other medical experts who raised concerns about the change included Democratic Governor of Hawaii Josh Green, a former emergency room physician. “Vaccines are not the problem. The problem is misinformation. The problem is getting too many people paranoid that good public health is going to cause them harm,” Green told POLITICO.
In addition to Cassidy, some congressional Republicans seemed troubled by the CDC’s evolving stance toward vaccines. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the moderate appropriations chair who has occasionally been critical of Kennedy, told reporters she does not believe vaccines cause autism.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters he had not seen the website change, but added: “I think vaccines are good. They’ve saved billions of lives.”
With help from Robert King, Alice Miranda Ollstein and Amanda Friedman.