“Vaccines do not cause autism.”
That was the message from a coalition of Maine health care organizations, who released a joint statement Friday after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week changed its website to cast doubt on the longtime scientific conclusion.
The group, comprising The Maine Medical Association, Maine Academy of Family Physicians, Maine Academy of Physician Associates, the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Maine Nurse Practitioner Association, Maine Osteopathic Association, and Maine Public Health Association, said the absence of a link between vaccines and autism “is supported by decades of rigorous research involving millions of children across multiple countries.”
The U.S. CDC’s “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”
The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.
It was immediately decried by scientists and advocates who have long been focused on finding the causes of autism.
The idea that vaccines cause autism originates with a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield claiming a link between the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine and the neurodevelopmental condition, which is often detected in early childhood, a time when children are also receiving many vaccinations.
Wakefield was ultimately found to have faked data, and additionally had a financial interest in his conclusion, but the idea of a link between vaccines and autism has persisted with anti-vaccines activists — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who this year became secretary of Health and Human Services.
It’s unclear if anyone at CDC was actually involved in the change to the website, or whether it was done by Kennedy’s HHS, which oversees the CDC.
In the joint statement Friday, the Maine health care group described vaccines as “among medicine’s greatest achievements.”
“We are all deeply concerned that federal health agencies are now promoting long-disproven claims that undermine public confidence in lifesaving immunizations. Maine has worked hard to protect our children through evidence-based vaccine policies,” the group said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
