What Long Islanders need to know about the CDC's new statement on autism and vaccines

A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statement retracted a longstanding statement on its website that vaccines do not cause autism. Local pediatricians and other experts said the new statement is "misleading," ignores decades of scientific research that has not shown a link between vaccines and autism, and omits how vaccines prevent children from dying or getting severely ill from diseases like measles, polio, whooping cough and diphtheria.

What does the new statement say?

The CDC updated its website Wednesday to say that "studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism."

"It's simply misinformation," said Dr. Eve Meltzer-Krief, a pediatrician at Allied Physician Group’s Huntington Village Pediatrics and vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics chapter that includes Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens.

Is there any truth at all to the new statement?

"We can, with great confidence, over decades of research, say that there is no evidence to think that vaccines cause autism, and there is no evidence that we should believe that says vaccines are not safe and, in fact, very, very healthy for children," said Dr. Annemarie Stroustrup, senior vice president for pediatric services at Northwell Health.

But John Gilmore, of Long Beach, who leads the vaccine-skeptical Autism Action Network, said, "It’s simply an accurate statement of where the science is at this point. The evidence simply isn’t there to prove it one way or the other."

Stroustrup said, "It's really, really hard in science to prove the negative, to say that this will never, ever happen in the history of the world," But she said, "It has not been proven 100% that there is no case of autism caused by blueberries or caused by wearing a pink hat on Saturdays."

What harm can the new statement cause?

"What it does is simply sow more confusion for parents at a time when we have multiple measles outbreaks throughout the country, pertussis outbreaks, and a concerningly high level of children not being caught up with their vaccines," Meltzer-Krief said.

Some families already are choosing not to vaccinate their children "out of caution and confusion and out of not knowing who to trust," Stroustrup said. "They are trying to do the best thing for their family," but not vaccinating their children puts the children at risk of contracting diseases and of spreading them to others, she said.

How effective are childhood vaccines?

The CDC’s own website still states that childhood vaccines save about 4 million lives a year worldwide.

"Vaccines are probably the most important advance in pediatric medicine over the last couple hundred years," Stroustrup said.

Has there been an increase in autism?

Yes. The new statement says the increase in the number of autism cases has occurred as the number of vaccines administered to infants has increased.

Gilmore said, "There are plenty of studies out there that suggest there may be a correlation. And those are simply disregarded."

The increase in autism cases has been dramatic, from 1 in 150 8-year-olds in 2000 to 1 in 32 in 2022.

But there is no evidence vaccines have anything to do with the increase, Meltzer-Krief said. The criteria for diagnosing a child with autism has broadened; many children, especially those with milder forms of autism, would not have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the past, she said.

In addition, Meltzer-Krief said, "pediatricians and screening professionals have gotten better at diagnosing and screening for autism."

What do leading medical and public health groups say?

The pediatrics academy and more than 40 other major medical, health and patient advocacy organizations said in a joint statement that they were "alarmed" by the CDC "promoting the outdated, disproven idea that vaccines cause autism."

Why did the CDC statement change?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine skeptic, acknowledged in a New York Times interview that he directed the CDC to change its statement.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who strongly supports vaccines, said in a post on X that HHS under Kennedy is "redirecting attention to factors we definitely know DO NOT cause autism" from what studies indicate may be the "real causes of autism," such as genetics and environmental toxins.

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.