The role of vaccines causing autism is the most contentious and important of the many unanswered questions about autism.  Yet nowhere in the current draft of the federal government’s Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) Strategic Plan for Autism Research, Services and Policy are “vaccines” or “immunizations” even mentioned, nor are they identified as research subjects for causing autism. The Strategic Plan should be redrafted to the include the role of vaccines in causing autism as the top priority for the Strategic Plan. 

This once fringe concern has gone mainstream. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 73% of parents of minor children and 64% of Americans either believe vaccines cause autism or are unsure. 

Despite this huge and growing doubt, the federal government has done little research to resolve this question: only one vaccine has been studied, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), and one ingredient: thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in multidose vials. 

Environmental factors and medical products are discussed as possible causes of autism in multiple places throughout the plan, broad categories which could include vaccines, but given the resistance to objective research on vaccines within the federal bureaucracy, unequivocal, explicit language calling for well-defined, transparent research with clear goals, targets, methods and timetables are essential. 

Can there be any doubt that without clear direction from the top nothing will be done?

The Strategic Plan should include recommendations to analyze:

• All vaccines recommended for children by the CDC, including RSV, Influenza, DTaP, Pneumococcal conjugate, Rotavirus, MMR, Inactivated polio, Hepatitis a, Hepatitis b, HIB, COVID, and Varicella,
• The impact of simultaneous injection of multiple doses of vaccines,
• The cumulative impact of the 90+ pre-natal and childhood doses recommended by the CDC,
• Studies should compare vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, something that the CDC has never done, according to testimony by Coleen Boyle, former director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disability, in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on November 29, 2012.
• Research should be conducted by personnel and organizations free from institutional or financial conflicts of interest.
• At least 30% of the test group should have profound or level three autism as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition.

TAKE ACTION

Please use the panel to the right to send messages to the IACC committee demanding the inclusion of vaccines' role in causing autism as the top priority for the strategic plan. 

The message is editable so modify it as you wish. 

The plan will be discussed at the next meeting of the IACC scheduled for August 27. 

The public comment period ends on August 20.

Read the draft Strategic Plan Here: 

What is the Strategic Plan?

The Plan is an advisory document intended for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The first draft of the federal government’s current IACC Strategic Plan for Autism was released several weeks ago for public comments. The Autism Cares Act of 2024 requires an update of the plan every two years. Prior to 2024, the plan was supposed to be updated every year, but years were frequently skipped, and the last plan was released in 2023.  

The current draft approaches autism as a biologically based disability marked by a wide range of health issues integral to the disorder. It contains a detailed plan for researching many of the unanswered questions about autism symptoms, focusing on developing effective treatment, prevention and possible cures for autism. 

President Trump has called repeatedly for research on vaccines and autism

Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal and other leading publications have reported that President Trump has pressed Sec. Kennedy to move more aggressively on analyzing the link between autism and vaccines. 

As recently as last Sunday, Sec. Kennedy in an interview on CNN confirmed that the President “certainly” wants him to investigate perceived links between autism and vaccines.

Investigating vaccines and autism is consistent with current HHS policy

Sec. Kennedy announced last year that HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links. But almost no information on this research is public so far.

CDC admits they have not studied vaccines and autism

The CDC also dropped its longstanding assertion that vaccines do not cause autism, and posted on their website, “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.”

Despite the many loud, shrill claims to the contrary, the studies we are led to believe have been done to prove that vaccines do not cause autism have never been done. 

We know this because the CDC was forced to admit in 2020 federal court stipulation that the studies have never been done. 

In 2019, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) and a group of autism organizations (including the Autism Action Network) filed Freedom of Information Act requests for “all studies relied upon by the CDC to claim” that the DTAP, hep b, Prevnar, HIB, inactivated polio, and the combined shots given to babies in the first six months of life do not cause autism. 

After many delays and a lawsuit, according to ICAN, the CDC finally identified a total of 16 studies and 4 reviews that it relied on to claim that the vaccines given to babies do not cause autism.  Not one of these studies or reviews supports the claim that vaccines injected into babies – DTaP, Hep B, Hib, Pneumococcal conjugate, and Inactivated polio – do not cause autism.

Only one of the studies or reviews listed by the CDC concerned a vaccine given to babies.  This was a 2012 review by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), paid for by the CDC, which conducted a comprehensive review looking specifically for studies relating to DTaP and autism.  The IOM concluded that it could not identify a single study to support that DTaP does not cause autism.  Instead, the only relevant study  the IOM could identify found an association between DTaP and autism. Eventually, the IOM concluded, “The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between diphtheria toxoid–, tetanus toxoid–, or acellular pertussis–containing vaccine and autism.”

We have a unique opportunity with President Trump and Sec. Kennedy to do the work that previous administrations either refused to do, squashed or corrupted. This opportunity must be seized. 

Note: John Gilmore, Executive Director of the Autism Action Network, is member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee