Parents deserve honest answers about vaccines. They deserve physicians who will listen to their concerns, explain the evidence and help them make informed decisions. Above all, they deserve confidence that the nation’s leading public health institutions are communicating science and not suggesting that there’s uncertainty where none exists.
That is why the recent changes to information presented on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website regarding vaccines and autism are so concerning. News organizations reported in November that the website had been wrongly edited to say, “The statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.” Last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said that in exchange for his support for Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services made “a sign of good faith” and “modified the CDC’s autism and vaccines webpage.”
The science has not changed: Vaccines do not cause autism.
But those changes have done nothing to mitigate the concerns. The website continues to wrongly say that a rejection of a link between vaccines and autism isn’t based on evidence. It also says, “Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”
As pediatricians who have spent our careers caring for children and their families, we know that trust is one of the most valuable tools in medicine. Trust takes years to build and moments to erode. At a time when public confidence in health institutions has already been tested, government agencies should be strengthening that trust by communicating what decades of scientific evidence have consistently shown, not reopening questions that have long been settled.
The science has not changed: Vaccines do not cause autism.
This conclusion does not rest on one study, one expert or one government agency. The conclusion follows decades of rigorous research conducted around the world involving millions of children, using multiple study designs and across different populations and health systems.
The evidence is overwhelming.
A 2014 meta-analysis by Taylor and colleagues pooled data from more than 1.2 million children in cohort studies and nearly 10,000 children in case-control studies. The researchers found no association between vaccination and autism spectrum disorder; no association between the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine and autism; and no evidence that thimerosal-containing vaccines or mercury exposure increased autism risk.
In 2021, the Cochrane Collaboration, widely regarded as one of the highest standards in evidence-based medicine, reviewed studies examining MMR, MMRV and varicella vaccines. Once again, researchers found no evidence linking MMR vaccination to autism spectrum disorder.
That same year, an updated systematic review commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality examined 338 studies identified from more than 56,000 scientific citations. The authors concluded with high-strength evidence that MMR vaccination does not increase the risk of autism.
Perhaps the clearest assessment came from The Lancet Infectious Diseases, where researchers described autism as the example for which evidence demonstrating no relationship with vaccination is “particularly strong.” Study after study, conducted by different investigators using different methodologies in different populations, has reached the same conclusion.
Healthy science welcomes questions. But science also requires us to acknowledge when a question has been answered.
In medicine, that is what scientific consensus looks like.
Healthy science welcomes questions. It encourages new evidence, replication and debate. But science also requires us to acknowledge when a question has been answered. Continuing to imply uncertainty after decades of consistent evidence does not advance scientific inquiry; it risks undermining public confidence in one of the safest and most effective public health interventions ever developed.
Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was right to emphasize that the overwhelming body of evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism. Reasonable people may disagree about public policy, but scientific facts should not be replaced with political talking points.
The consequences of confusion are not theoretical.
We are already witnessing the return of vaccine-preventable diseases in communities where vaccination rates have fallen. As pediatricians in South Carolina, which had almost 1,000 cases of measles before May this year, we have seen firsthand the disruption that follows every measles case: public health investigations, exposure notifications, quarantine recommendations, missed school and work and understandable fear among families with infants, children receiving cancer treatment or others who cannot fully be protected through vaccination.
These outbreaks are not acts of fate. They are, in almost every circumstance, preventable.
The overwhelming majority of American parents continue to vaccinate their children because they understand that vaccines save lives. They deserve clear, consistent communication from the institutions they rely on, not messages that suggest long-standing scientific conclusions are suddenly open for debate.
Families affected by autism deserve better than having their children’s diagnoses negatively and repeatedly linked to a theory that has been disproven for more than two decades.
Meanwhile, families affected by autism deserve better than having their children’s diagnoses negatively and repeatedly linked to a theory that has been disproven for more than two decades.
Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that affects millions of children and adults. Families deserve continued investment in understanding its causes, improving early identification, expanding access to evidence-based therapies and ensuring children receive the support they need throughout their lives. Revisiting a debunked vaccine theory does nothing to advance those goals. Instead, it diverts time, attention and resources away from the questions that remain unanswered.
As pediatricians, our responsibility is not to defend political leaders or government agencies. It is to advocate for children and to provide families with the most accurate information available. When misinformation threatens children’s health, even inadvertently, we have an obligation to speak clearly.
Parents should always ask questions. Physicians should always answer them honestly. Public health institutions should always communicate the strongest available evidence.
After decades of careful research involving millions of children, that evidence remains unchanged. Vaccines do not cause autism. Vaccines save lives.
Our children deserve public conversations, and public policies, that reflect both truths.
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