A new NOTUS report published late last week revealed that the CDC’s webpage on vaccines and autism still cites a 2010 study linking the hepatitis B vaccine to autism in boys, months after the study’s own publisher retracted it for fundamental methodological flaws.
- The CDC changed its webpage on vaccines and autism with a new statement making clear that scientists “have not identified the root causes” of autism, a change Sen. Cassidy, who has been critical of Robert F. Kennedy’s Jr. anti-vaccine sentiments, called an act of “good faith,” The New York Times first reported.
- But the recent changes to the site did not include removing a reference to a 2010 study on the hepatitis B vaccine and autism rates in boys, despite its publication retracting the study in May. That study found that boys vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine had a significantly higher chance of being diagnosed with autism. An independent statistical reviewer found its conclusions were unsound.
- The CDC web page cites the study and lists its conclusions in reference to a 2014 review conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which it says found the study “met criteria for reliability.”
- In a statement on the retraction, the study’s publisher said that an independent statistical reviewer found that the study had “fundamental methodological flaws,” including an “overstated conclusion.” The vast majority of research into the purported link between vaccines and autism has found no evidence to support such a link.
- “Based on the statistical review, it was determined that this conclusion is not supported by the data,” the publisher wrote in May.
American Bridge 21st Century dug deeper and found the CDC isn’t just echoing a retracted study. It is echoing key pieces of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign platform.
AB21 research found that the CDC page and the Kennedy24 campaign website cite the exact same retracted 2010 study to support a claimed threefold autism risk from hepatitis B vaccination in newborns:
- The CDC cited a “sectional study” that found a “threefold risk of parental report of autism among newborns receiving a HepB vaccine in the first month of life” and said that “there are still no studies that support the claim that any of the 20 doses of the seven infant vaccines […] do not cause autism.”
- RFK Jr.’s campaign cited the same retracted article to conclude that “boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life.”
The mirrored citations, language, and conclusions on autism between the CDC and the Kennedy24 campaign website continue:
- Both RFK Jr.’s campaign site and the CDC mark the rise in autism prevalence from 1986 — correlating the rise in autism with the rise in the number of vaccines given to infants.
- RFK Jr.’s campaign said, “all scientific studies claiming to disprove the link between vaccination and autism are deeply flawed.”
- The CDC said that studies claiming there was no association between autism and vaccines “have all been criticized for serious methodological flaws.”
The revelation raises new questions about whether the CDC’s science under the incoming Schwartz administration is being shaped by political pressure from vaccine skeptics inside the Trump administration rather than by public health data. It also lands as the country is already grappling with multiple public health crises that experts say are being made worse by declining trust in vaccines and food safety oversight. This is what happens when Republicans put vaccine skeptics in charge of the nation’s health agencies while the basic public health infrastructure Americans rely on is stretched thin.
Published: Jul 27, 2026