As of November 20, 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added a reference to a debunked connection between vaccines and autism to its website. Any causal link between vaccines and autism is unsupported by a large body of scientific research, which, until recently, informed the CDC’s position on the safety of vaccines. However, the CDC now states: “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 significant scientific evidence that there is no causal link between vaccines and autism, the CDC announced that it is reconsidering the question and “has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.”
Public health experts have expressed concerns “about a drop in childhood vaccination, which has led to a resurgence of dangerous childhood diseases like measles and whooping cough.” The American Academy of Pediatrics president, Dr. Susan Kressly, released a statement criticizing the CDC’s change as “promot[ing] false information” and asking it to “stop wasting government resources to amplify false claims that sow doubt in one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations.”