by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to conduct a large -scale investigation to re -examine whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism, federal officials said on Friday.
Dozens of scientific studies have not found any proof of a link. But the CDC now falls under the great view of the secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of health and human services, which has long pronounced skepticism about the safety of vaccines and has vowed to visit the data again.
“As President Trump said in his joint speech to the congress, the percentage of autism in American children has been raised. CDC will not leave a stone undisturbed in his mission to find out what exactly happens, “said Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement on Friday.
Mr Nixon did not offer any details about the scope or methods of the project. The news of the study was first reported by Reuters on Friday morning.
When following the study, the CDC defies the wishes of the Senate Health Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy, who said this week that further research into an assumed link between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and a distraction of research that could shed light on the “true reason” for an increase in autism.
“It was exhaustively studied,” said Mr. Cassidy, a doctor, during the confirmation hearing for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the nominee of President Trump to lead the National Institutes of Health. “The more we pretend this is a problem, the more we will let children die from vaccin-preventionable diseases.”
Although Dr. Bhattacharya said that he is ‘convinced’ of the existing research that there is no connection between vaccines and autism, he suggested that more research could mitigate the fears for nervous parents. Kennedy’s supporters and allies of his “Make America Remory Again” movement praised the decision of the administration.
“Both Trump and Kennedy keep their word,” said Zen Honeycutt, founder of the non -profit mothers throughout America. “We wish the previous government had made health and autism epidemic a priority.”
The news of the planned CDC study comes in the midst of a rapidly spreading measles outbreak in West -Texas, powered by low vaccination rates, which has infected nearly 200 people and killed two. Last year, around 82 percent of kindergarten received the most affected from the province, measles vaccine, far below 95 percent needed to prevent outbreaks. According to Texas health officials, 80 of the infected non -vaccinated and 113 had an “unknown vaccination status”.
Asked in an interview about the plans of the CDC to investigate whether autism is connected to vaccination, Xavier Becerra, health secretary of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Said: “The only thing I will say is that CDC can do many things. They can walk and chew chewing gum, but I hope that CDC will be used to help us get a grip on measles before another life dies unnecessarily.”
The percentage of autism diagnoses in the United States is increasingly increasing. About 1 in 36 children have one, according to data that the CDC recently collected from 11 states, compared to 1 in 150 children in 2000. Researchers have the majority of the increase in the increase in the disorder and changes to how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environment, which can also play a role.
“There are so many promising leads for the cause or causes of autism,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, on Friday in an e -mail. “Vaccines are not one of them. Since there are limited resources from the CDC, this is a sad day for children with autism. “
Just like Mr. Kennedy, Mr Trump has long embraced the idea that vaccines are somehow related to rising autism; He increased the idea for the first time in 2007 and returned to it as a presidential candidate in 2015. He also said that he would support Mr. Kennedy that would investigate the problem again, most recently, referring to the speed of autism diagnoses during his speech to the congress on Tuesday.
“We’re going to find out what it is, and there is no one better than Bobby and all the people who work with you,” he said. ‘Bobby, good luck. It is a very important job. “
Mr. Kennedy won the confirmation of the Senate as a health secretary through the narrowest margins. In the end, he largely overcame by Mr Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, who specialized as a doctor and a strong supporter of vaccine. During the second day of the confirmation hearing sessions, Senator Cassidy deeply expressed delivered about Mr. Kennedy’s early questions about vaccines, and he called a study of 1.2 million children found no connection between vaccines and autism.
Mr. Kennedy shot back and said that a new study “showed the opposite.” A review from the New York Times of that study showed that it was financed, written and published by a network of vaccine skeptics close to Mr. Kennedy. When the study was rejected by various regular medical magazines, Andrew Wakefield, the author of a 1998 study that linked vaccines to autism, found it a home in a magazine published by various vaccincritics.
After his confirmation, Mr. Kennedy’s first speech to his staff was a promise to study the rise of chronic diseases in the United States, including with an evaluation of the vaccine schedule or a series of vaccinations given to young children.
Christina Jewett contributed reporting.
