RFK Jr. Wants To Probe State Medical Records for Link Between Autism and Vaccines: Report

KFF Health News — part of the nonprofit KFF foundation — reports that federal officials have been meeting with the leaders of several state-run health information exchange services seeking access to medical records. State officials told KFF that federal officials voiced an interest in using it to study a possible link between vaccines and autism.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says 1 in 33 children is now diagnosed with autism — a dramatic increase over the past several decades — and has vowed to uncover a cause. Scientists have been working for decades to determine what factors might contribute to autism but the cause or causes remain unclear. Mr. Kennedy once claimed there was a link between the condition and a preservative that is used in vaccines.Mr. Kennedy has also claimed that MMR shots are a source of the spike in autism cases even though dozens of major studies have found no connection between the two.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its messaging on autism, especially when it comes to vaccines, since Mr. Kennedy came into office. A disclaimer on a CDC vaccine safety page 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.” It goes on to state, “Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”Health and Human Services did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The New York Sun. But in a statement to USA Today, an agency spokeswoman said the purpose of the request for state data is “strengthening public health surveillance and modernizing data systems to better understand and combat the childhood chronic disease epidemic as part of Secretary Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. Americans deserve robust systems to monitor the drivers of chronic illness.”Meanwhile, Mr. Kennedy is seeking to overhaul a government program that compensates people with vaccine injuries to make it easier to receive payments for a wider number of vaccines. In an X post nearly a year ago, Mr. Kennedy said the system “is broken, and I intend to fix it.”Mr. Kennedy, in January, removed at least four of the nine members of the panel that advises the compensation program and replaced them with allies.Patient, consumer, and healthcare professional organizations are worried that Mr. Kennedy’s goal is to eventually eliminate the program and open the pharmaceutical industry to lawsuits. The groups sent a letter in April to Mr. Kennedy expressing concern that the move could lead to companies pulling vaccines from the market over liability concerns.

RFK Jr. Wants To Probe State Medical Records for Link Between Autism and Vaccines: Report

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