Trump administration officials asked the CDC to perform the study, according to The Washington Post. The revelation came days after President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress, referred to the rising rate of autism in the U.S. Trump cited CDC data showing that 1 in 36 U.S. children have autism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed it plans to\u00a0study the possible link between vaccines and autism<\/a>, after Reuters reported on the plan late Friday, citing two sources inside the agency.<\/p>\n In response to the Reuters story, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided an identical statement:<\/p>\n \u201cAs President Trump said in his\u00a0Joint Address to Congress<\/a>, the rate of\u00a0autism<\/a>\u00a0in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening. The American people expect high quality research and transparency and that is what CDC is delivering.\u201d<\/p>\n The revelation came days after President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress, referred to the rising rate of autism in the U.S. Trump, citing CDC data showing that\u00a01 in 36 U.S. children have autism<\/a>, said HHS Secretary\u00a0Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>, is well suited to lead efforts to study the increase.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something wrong,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re going to find out what it is, and there\u2019s nobody better than Bobby [Kennedy] and all of the people that are working with you.\u201d<\/p>\n According to\u00a0The Washington Post<\/a>, Trump administration officials asked the CDC to perform the study.\u00a0Newsweek<\/a>\u00a0reported that it is \u201cunclear\u201d whether Kennedy is involved in the new study. However, HHS oversees federal health\u00a0agencies<\/a>, including the CDC.<\/p>\n Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., Children\u2019s Health Defense (CHD) senior research scientist, applauded \u201cthe CDC\u2019s newfound curiosity in vaccines and autism.\u201d He said the U.S. \u201cpassed an inflection point\u201d in the 1990s, where autism \u201cwent from being a rare disease to a more common one\u201d that has been \u201cincreasing exponentially ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen is an appropriate time to conduct a large study on\u00a0vaccines and autism<\/a>? Apparently, two generations later,\u201d Jablonowski said.<\/p>\n Sayer Ji<\/a>, chairman and co-founder of the\u00a0Global Wellness Forum<\/a>, called the news a \u201cpivotal moment, not just in the scientific exploration of\u00a0vaccine<\/a>\u00a0safety, but in the broader issue of public trust in our institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Ji said the CDC\u2019s plan for a large-scale study \u201cis an implicit admission that prior investigations may have been insufficient, biased or incomplete.\u201d He said the new study \u201ccould represent a breakthrough moment\u201d in \u201cresolving this critical health question\u201d and \u201crestoring faith in the integrity of scientific inquiry itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018A seismic shift toward accountability\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the Post, the\u00a0CDC will conduct the study<\/a>\u00a0using data from the\u00a0Vaccine Safety Datalink<\/a>, a database of patient health records. The Vaccine Safety Datalink draws on data from 13 U.S. healthcare organizations,\u00a0CNN reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said the study should examine the CDC\u2019s\u00a0childhood vaccination schedule<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cumulative effect of giving multiple vaccines at once as well as over a short period of months has not been studied as a potential contributing factor to autism,\u201d Parks said. \u201cVaccines have the potential to alter a child\u2019s immune system in ways that are unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n Parks referred to studies performed in\u00a01970<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a01987<\/a>\u00a0that found autism rates of 0.7 and 3.3 children per 10,000, respectively. \u201cIf autism were as prevalent then as it is now, we should have a large number of older\u00a0autistic adults<\/a>, which we do not,\u201d Parks said.<\/p>\n Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, suggested the CDC study should use an unvaccinated control group. Hooker cited his experience performing research using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, noting that the database already contains data on unvaccinated children.<\/p>\n A\u00a02021 study co-authored by Hooker<\/a>\u00a0found that vaccinated children were significantly more likely than unvaccinated children to be diagnosed with autism.<\/p>\n Ji said any CDC study examining a possible vaccine-autism link should reflect Kennedy\u2019s recent calls for \u201cgold-standard science<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n He said:<\/p>\n \u201cIt must be a true gold-standard study. The methodology must be rigorous, transparent and independent, with no industry or government interference. It should be a prospective, controlled, long-term study comparing fully unvaccinated and vaccinated populations.\u201d<\/p>\n Hooker said the CDC has previously not made data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink available to the public, even though it is taxpayer-funded.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never had access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink. We\u2019ve never had access to such a gold-standard database, and that thing takes $50 million worth of tax dollars to maintain every year. It should be open to the public,\u201d Hooker said.<\/p>\n Ji said many past vaccine safety studies were flawed due to a\u00a0lack of transparency<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, vaccine safety studies have been marred by selective reporting, data manipulation and redacted findings. Kennedy has long advocated for open access to government data, and if this study follows through on that promise, it would be a seismic shift toward accountability,\u201d Ji said.<\/p>\n Rise in autism cannot simply be attributed to \u2018better diagnosis\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Reuters attributed the\u00a0rise in autism rates<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cmore widespread screening and the inclusion of a broader range of behaviors to describe the condition.\u201d<\/p>\n Research scientist and author\u00a0James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D.<\/a>, said such claims are \u201cpure disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo rigorous study has shown that these factors are responsible,\u201d Lyons-Weiler said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese criteria cannot explain the 7% increase in autism following the removal of vaccine exemptions from California, which has 1 in 22, the\u00a0highest rate among all states<\/a>,\u201d Lyons-Weiler said.<\/p>\n Ji said that prior studies claiming to debunk the vaccine-autism link should be called into question, noting that many such studies \u201csuffer from conflicts of interest, flawed methodologies and a lack of truly unvaccinated control groups.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Hooker, many previous studies were flawed because they focused only on a limited number of\u00a0vaccines<\/a>\u00a0and vaccine components.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CDC and most of the open peer-reviewed literature focuses on one vaccine and one vaccine component, the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine and\u00a0thimerosal<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines. A 2013 study found a link between thimerosal exposure and the\u00a0risk of an autism diagnosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Recent independently performed studies have indicated a connection between vaccines and autism.<\/p>\n A peer-reviewed study published in\u00a0Science, Public Health Policy and the Law<\/a>\u00a0in January found that\u00a0vaccinated children have a 170% higher chance<\/a>\u00a0of being diagnosed with autism compared to unvaccinated children. The study also found that the autism risk increases in children with a higher number of vaccinations.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/naturalblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/cdc-study-vaccines-autism-feature-1024x534-1.jpg\")
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