Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in The Washington Post, in “CDC Plans Study on Vaccines and Autism Despite Research Showing No Link,” by Lena H. Sun and Lauren Weber. (Read the full version - subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning a study into the potential connections between vaccines and autism, according to two people familiar with the plan, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that there is no link between the two.
Autism diagnoses are on the rise in the United States — about 1 in 36 children have received such a diagnosis, according to data the CDC collected from 11 states, compared with 1 in 150 children in 2000.
Researchers attribute much of the surge to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that could be playing a role too.
Nevertheless, President Donald Trump and new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have repeatedly linked vaccines to autism.
Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, has disparaged vaccines for years. A previous Washington Post examination found that since 2020, Kennedy has linked autism to vaccines in at least 36 appearances, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.
Trump, who mentioned the rising rates of autism in his address to Congress this week, has previously linked vaccines to autism. In a 2012 call into “Fox & Friends,” he said “they go in, they get this monster shot — you ever see the size of it? It’s like they’re pumping in, you know it’s terrible, the amount, and they pump this into this little body, and then all of a sudden the child is different a month later. And I strongly believe that’s it.”
The debunked theory traces to a 1998 study linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism — a paper that was ultimately retracted. Study author Andrew Wakefield was barred from practicing medicine in Britain and found guilty of professional misconduct.
Years of research based on data from hundreds of thousands of patients has shown no link between vaccines and autism. A decade-long study of half a million children in Denmark published in 2019 showed the MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of autism, lending new statistical evidence to what was already medical consensus.
Public health and other experts have feared Kennedy would use his new authority to mislead the public on vaccines.
“It’s just so irresponsible that anybody in a position of authority would continue to raise this in this way. This is really misleading for the public,” said Richard Hughes IV, a former vice president of public policy at the drug company Moderna who teaches vaccine law at the George Washington University Law School. “The reality is that it’s been studied. There is no link, and it’s just irresponsible.”
