CDC website changes vaccine, autism guidance

Welcome back to TheTakeout. The CDC's website has made a significant change to its guidance on vaccines and autism. The site used to say, quote, "no links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and autism spectrum disorder," unquote. It now reads, quote, "vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence-based claim." Dr. Jon LaPook joins us from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. Dr. LaPook, I know you have thoughts on this. Just hold them for a second because one of the things we take pride here at TheTakeout is not only telling our audience where the story is but where it once was. So I want to play sound from February 4 from Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who supported the confirmation about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be HHS Secretary, and he talked specifically about guidance under RFK Jr. on autism and vaccines. Please listen. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations without changes. CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism. Dr. LaPook, that's what the senator said. That's not what just happened. No. Your thoughts? Well, yeah. Senator Cassidy is a physician, and I actually interviewed him for a different story. And I know he takes all this super seriously, and he's written about the importance of vaccines. So, clearly, something changed. And we all remember that he agonized over that weekend, from Friday to Monday. And on Friday, we thought, well, maybe he was going to be thumbs down on the confirmation. And then on Monday, based on those assurances and reassurances that he mentioned, he voted yes. But, certainly, things have changed. And talk to my audience about what we know, what the studies have said, and about this statement and how different it is from what the CDC has historically said on this particular topic. Yeah, well, the last part is very easy. They have said vaccines do not cause autism. That's what the vast scientific consensus is. And I think people-- you need a little history lesson here.

Please. Major, back-- there was no mention-- there was no national movement about that, there was some kind of a link between vaccines and autism, until 1998. 1998, there was a small study in the British journal called TheLancet,and it linked-- it purported to link Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, MMR vaccine, with autism. Well, that was completely-- there was an investigation, and it was felt that that was fraudulent research. However, it took 12 years for that, from 1998 to 2010, before TheLancet withdrew that article. And in that 12 years, of course, it flamed up throughout the world, really, saying, well, is there a link? And so because of that study, dozens of studies were done over decades, some very large ones, more than a million people in Denmark, that never found any link between vaccines and autism. So it's very hard to prove a negative, Major. How do you prove that something doesn't exist? But after a while, when you've done so many different studies and you have every single major society saying there's no link that's been established, I mean, I think you have to take. And I would just end with this. There's a lot of frustration in the medical community and research community because all these years and years were spent basically investigating a hypothesis based on that fraudulent 1998 paper. Could you imagine if all that time and effort and money had been spent not only looking for a cause for autism but looking for ways to make an early diagnosis and address early treatment? I mean, it's very frustrating. Happy to see that NIH is going to put $50 million into research. That can't come a second too soon.

Dr. Jon LaPook, as always, sir, thank you so very much.