RFK Jr.’s CDC fills its autism webpage with anti-vaxxer talking points
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“The CDC cannot be trusted as a source. It is a weapon.” —former Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis.
Yesterday, the CDC updated its webpage on “Autism and Vaccines.” The update represents an extraordinary moment in the history of our nation’s public health system—a Rubicon moment. The CDC’s page on vaccines and autism is now filled with anti-vaxxer talking points. It’s both expected—we certainly saw this coming, ever since Bill Cassidy’s vote in favor of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services clinched his confirmation bid. But it’s still shocking to see.
That said, the first thing you’d notice if you opened the page might be the innocuous header text that precedes the main body of the page. That reads, “Vaccines do not cause Autism*.”
So far, so good. The problem is the asterisk—and everything else on the page. The asterisk is explained at the bottom of the page. It reads:
*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.
—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 19, 2025.
In other words, Senator HELP Committee chair Bill Cassidy extracted a promise from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation process that, apparently, included a stipulation regarding the precise language of the header text for this webpage.
So, the CDC under Secretary Kennedy is seemingly abiding by some aspects of Senator Cassidy’s requirement (which was levied in exchange for a vote in favor of Kennedy’s confirmation), but certainly not the spirit of the agreement. (Cassidy mistakenly believed that Kennedy’s empty promises would be sufficient to protect our national vaccine policies from his attacks. How quaint. It turns out to have been one of the great blunders in the history of our nation’s public health.)
Virtually everything else on the page is, indeed, an anti-vaxxer’s dream.
The CDC is now spouting misinformation.
The key points summary that appears at the top of the page is an astonishing departure from the agency’s longstanding evidence-based stances that refuted any connection between vaccines and autism.
Here’s how the top of the CDC’s page on autism and vaccines now reads:
...“Key points:
The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim
This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.