FALSE

Scientific consensus established by major medical institutions and decades of research confirms that vaccines do not cause autism 1, 4, 11. The original 1998 report suggesting a link was retracted due to its use of fraudulent data, and subsequent large-scale studies have consistently failed to find any association 1, 12. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) underwent an unprecedented messaging change in November 2025 under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to cast doubt on this consensus, leading scientific organizations and advocates have characterized these changes as not evidence-based and a distortion of science 3, 8, 9, 10. Institutions such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Johns Hopkins University, and the Mayo Clinic maintain that the autism-vaccine link is a debunked myth and that no link exists between vaccine ingredients and autism spectrum disorder 1, 2, 4. Critically, the scientific community continues to rebuke these misleading assertions, emphasizing that vaccine safety has been proven repeatedly through rigorous empirical study 5, 11.