Federal Court Case Reveals CDC Lacks Evidence to Claim ‘Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism,’ Watchdog Groups Assert
After FOIA requests ignored, nonprofits use lawsuit to compel CDC to reveal research used to inform several public vaccination programs
BY CONAN MILNER March 13, 2020 Updated: March 15, 2020FONT BFONT SText size Print
A recent lawsuit to force the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to respond to six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has revealed that claims that several vaccines don’t cause autism have no scientific basis, vaccine watchdog groups assert.
The only study that the CDC provided that specifically examined the questions raised by the lawsuit found a possible link to autism, according to the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), one of the groups that filed the suit.
Autism is a developmental disability that can cause significant social and behavioral challenges, and the number of cases of autism has grown exponentially in the past few decades. Recent data finds that 1 in 36 children born in the United States this year will have autism (up from 1 in 10,000 in 1980). While there are many theories, an official cause for the sharp rise hasn’t been determined.
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Concern that vaccines are responsible for the rise in autism comes largely from thousands of parents of autistic children who attest to an immediate and dramatic change in their developmentally normal children immediately following vaccination. This anecdotal evidence has been dismissed by health officials as unreliable.
Vaccine activists worry there is a connection between the concurrent rise of autism and the increase in immunizations that U.S. children are required to receive. Health authorities have dismissed this link, claiming it to be a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. The FDA, which is responsible for approving vaccines, and the CDC, which is the major U.S. purchaser and reseller of vaccines, have repeatedly assured the public that exhaustive research shows no such link.
But that claim is now in question after the CDC provided only 20 studies in response to the ICAN and Institute for Autism Science suit and only after being taken to court; none of the studies appear to resolve the fundamental question.
On June 21, 2019, the two nonprofits filed six FOIA requests with the CDC to obtain evidence that federal health authorities used to prove vaccine safety. The requests sought studies on a handful of vaccines given in the first six months in a child’s life: DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis), Engerix-B, Recombivax HB, Prevnar 13, Hib, and polio (IPV) vaccines. The FOIA also requested the CDC provide studies to support the claim that cumulative exposure to these vaccines during the first six months of life doesn’t cause autism.
Six months later, the two nonprofits filed a 36-page complaint on Dec. 19, 2019, in a federal court that accused the CDC of falsely claiming that “vaccines don’t cause autism,” asserting that studies used to make this claim don’t exist.
In response, the CDC provided 20 studies, and the plaintiffs settled, allowing the suit to be voluntarily dismissed. The groups say the studies from the CDC didn’t provide the evidence health officials say they do. The groups describe the provided studies as including 18 that didn’t produce evidence relevant to the requests (13 were related to the vaccine ingredient thimerosal and five related to both MMR and thimerosal), one related to the MMR vaccine, and one related to antigen exposure, not vaccines.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/federal-court-case-reveals-cdc-lacks-evidence-to-claim-vaccines-dont-cause-autism_3270994.html