The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intends to award a grant to study a long-discredited link between vaccines and autism.
The agency issued a notice late last week signaling that it will contract with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. for an “investigation of the association between vaccinations and autism prevalence.”
According to the notice, the award will be made without any competitive bidding process.
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“The vendor has unique ability to link children to maternal cohorts using proprietary databases and de-identified data sets, enabling advanced statistical analyses within the project’s timeframe,” the posting from the CDC’s Office of Acquisition Services states.
The notice does not detail who will conduct the planned study, what protocols will be used, the timetable or how much money the grant is worth. The CDC did not respond to a request for specifics.
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said in a statement that it “is aware of and appreciates the Centers for Disease Control’s intent to award the grant.”
The university said that Professor Juergen Hahn, a biomedical engineer and data science expert, would lead the effort, noting that he has “conducted extensive research focused on autism risk factors” and “is renowned for the quality and rigor of his research.”
“If this project is awarded, he intends to publish the results of his work at the conclusion of the project,” the statement said.
Hahn has previously published research suggesting that autism can be detected using a blood test.
The executive committee of the Coalition of Autism Scientists, a group of more than 300 researchers in the field, said it is “not typical” for this type of award to be given without a competitive process, calling the funding “unprecedented.”
“More importantly, there is no reason to study the association between vaccines and autism,” the group said. “Extensive research has already examined the potential linkages of pediatric vaccines overall as well as the individual components and identified no areas for concern. This is well covered territory and the research led to comprehensive statements by the CDC/WHO. Focusing on this area of research takes away critical attention from the issues affecting autistic people and continues to sow unnecessary fear.”
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years promoting a link between autism and vaccines despite numerous studies discrediting that theory. As health secretary, he has prioritized identifying what’s behind the rise in autism rates in recent decades and he has promised to make announcements this month about what’s causing autism.
“We’re finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism and we’re gonna be able to address those in September,” Kennedy said during a cabinet meeting in August.
At the meeting, President Donald Trump said it will be a “big day” when the announcements are made.
“There’s something wrong when you see the kind of numbers that you have today versus 20 years ago,” Trump said. “So there has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something, and I know you’re looking very strongly at different things and I hope you can come out with that as soon as possible.”
Since then, Trump posted a video on social media linking autism and vaccines.
The messaging contrasts with that of the CDC, which clearly states on its website that “vaccines do not cause autism.”
“Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” the agency’s site indicates. “No links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and ASD.”
Autism experts largely attribute the rise in prevalence to better awareness, improved screening tools and methods and changes in the diagnostic criteria.
Kennedy’s expedited push to uncover what’s behind the increase in autism has been met with skepticism by many long-time researchers and advocates who say that there is no one cause, but rather a complex interaction of genetics and environmental influences, with genetics playing the largest role.
A dozen autism and disability advocacy groups including the Autism Society of America, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities and The Arc of the United States put out a statement ahead of Kennedy’s confirmation hearings earlier this year saying that vaccines do not cause autism.
“Perpetuating myths linking vaccines to autism does a disservice to the autism community by distracting from their pressing healthcare needs,” the groups said at the time.
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