IDSA Statement on CDC's Study into Vaccines and Autism

On March 10, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) made a statement on the recent the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) recent decision to study vaccines and autism.

First reported by Reuters, the CDC is preparing a large study into possible connections between vaccines and autism. This information came from two sources familiar with the matter, “despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links.”

IDSA’s statement said, “Vaccines have been thoroughly researched and administered to large numbers of people of all ages and have been proven to be very safe and effective in preventing the spread of many serious infectious diseases and dramatically reducing deaths. Decades of research and hundreds of carefully designed and scientifically sound studies show no link or association between vaccines and autism.”

The statement added that studying potential links between vaccines and autism will mean federal resources will be diverted from other areas of study.

“Outbreaks of deadly diseases like measles—which is preventable if a person is vaccinated—should be the top priority of federal health officials, not revisiting established science,” IDSA noted. “CDC’s study on the safety of vaccines could drive misinformation, leading to lower vaccination rates, more serious, vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and a significantly weakened public health response.”