The centers for the control and prevention of diseases are planning to conduct a large -scale study to review if there is a connection between vaccines and autism, federal officials said on Friday.
Dozens of scientific studies have not been able to find evidence of a connection. But the CDC now falls within the secretary of health and human services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long expressed skepticism on vaccine security and has promised to revisit data.
“As President Trump said in his joint discourse to the congress, the autism rate in American children has risen to the stars. The CDC will leave nothing to intend to understand what exactly is going on, “said Andrew Nixon, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, in a declaration on Friday.
Nixon did not offer details on the scope or on the methods of the project. The news of the study was reported for the first time on Friday morning by Reuters.
In pursuing the study, the CDC is challenging the wishes of the President of the Senate Health Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy, who this week said that further research on any alleged link between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and a distraction from the research that could shed light on the “real reason” for an increase in autism’s rates.
“He was studied exhaustively,” said Cassidy, a doctor, during the confirmation hearing for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, candidate for President Trump to lead the National Institutes of Health. “We pretend that this is a problem, the more we will have children who die from preventable diseases with the vaccine.”
While Dr. Bhattacharya said he was “convinced” by existing research that there is no link between vaccines and autism, he suggested that further research could appease the fears of nerve parents. The supporters of Mr. Kennedy and the allies of his “Make America American Healthy Again” movement praised the administration’s decision.
“Both Trump and Kennedy are keeping their word,” said Zen Honeycutt, founder of non -profit mothers throughout America. “We wish the previous administration had made the health and epidemic of autism a priority.”
The news of the expected CDC study comes in the middle of a measles outbreak that spreads rapidly in western Texas, led by low vaccination rates, which infected almost 200 people and killed two of them. Last year, about 82 percent of the kindergarten population in the most affected county had received the measles vaccine, much below 95 percent necessary to avoid the bursts. According to Texas health officials, 80 of the infects were not vaccinated and 113 had “unknown vaccination state”.
To the question in an interview on the Plans of the CDC to review if autism is connected to vaccination, Xavier Becerra, secretary of the health of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., He said: “Everything I will say is that the CDC can do many things. They can walk and chew the rubber, but I hope the CDC is used to help us take a grip on measles before another life dies unnecessarily, it perishes. “
The autism diagnosis rate in the United States is undeniably increasing. About 1 out of 36 children have one, according to the data that the CDC has recently collected from 11 states, compared to 1 out of 150 children in 2000. Researchers attribute most of the increase to the greater awareness of the disorder and changes in the way in which it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say that there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that they could also play a role.
“There are so many promising leads for the cause or causes of autism,” said dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specialized in infectious diseases at the Pediatric Hospital in Philadelphia, in one and -mail on Friday. “Vaccines are not one of these. Since there are limited resources from the CDC, this is a sad day for children with autism. “
Like Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Trump has long married the idea that vaccines are in some way related to the increase in autism rates; He raised the idea for the first time in 2007 and returned as presidential candidate in 2015. He also said he would support Mr. Kennedy who reviews the problem, recently citing the autism diagnosis rate during his speech at the congress on Tuesday.
“We will find out what it is and there is no one better than Bobby and all the people who are working with you,” he said. “Bobby, good luck. It is a very important job. “
Kennedy won the confirmation of the Senate as a health secretary with the closer margins. In the end, he prevailed largely by winning Mr. Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, specialized in liver diseases as a doctor and strong supporter of vaccines. During the second day of the confirmation auditions, Senator Cassidy expressed profound concern for the interrogation of Mr. Kennedy on vaccines and mentioned a study out of 1.2 million children had not found any link between vaccines and autism.
Mr. Kennedy went back, saying that a new study “showed the opposite”. A revision of the New York Times of that study discovered that it was financed, written and published by a network of skeptics on vaccines close to Mr. Kennedy. When the study was rejected by various traditional medical magazines, Andrew Wakefield, author of a 1998 retracted study that connects the vaccines to autism, helped find a house in a magazine published by several vaccine critics.
After his confirmation, Kennedy’s first speech to his staff included the commitment to study the increase in chronic diseases in the United States, also with a review of the vaccine program or a suite of immunizations given to young children.
Christina Jewett Contributed relationships.