Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s well being secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he based to take down an online web page that mimicked the design of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s web site however laid out a case that vaccines trigger autism.
The web page had been printed on a web site apparently registered to the nonprofit, the anti-vaccine group Kids’s Well being Protection. Mr. Kennedy’s motion got here after The New York Occasions inquired concerning the web page and after information of it ricocheted throughout social media.
The web page was taken offline Saturday night.
“Secretary Kennedy has instructed the Workplace of the Basic Counsel to ship a proper demand to Kids’s Well being Protection requesting the removing of their web site,” the Well being and Human Companies Division mentioned in an announcement.
“At H.H.S. we’re devoted to restoring our companies to their custom of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science,” the assertion mentioned.
It was not clear why the anti-vaccine group might need printed a web page mimicking the C.D.C.’s. The group didn’t reply to requests for remark, and Mr. Kennedy has mentioned he severed ties with it when he started his presidential marketing campaign in 2023.
The pretend vaccine security web page was virtually indistinguishable from the one accessible on the C.D.C.’s personal web site. The format, typefaces and logos had been the identical, maybe in violation of federal copyright regulation.
Whereas the C.D.C.’s personal web site refutes a connection between vaccines and autism, the impostor left open the likelihood that one exists. On the backside, it included hyperlinks to video testimonials from mother and father who imagine their youngsters had been harmed by vaccines.
Publication of the web page was first reported on Substack by E. Rosalie Li, founding father of the Info Epidemiology Lab. The nonprofit didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Mr. Kennedy has for years maintained that there’s a hyperlink between vaccines and autism. He held to that stance throughout his Senate affirmation hearings, regardless of in depth analysis debunking the idea.
Beneath his course, the C.D.C. just lately introduced plans to re-examine the proof — a transfer that Senator Invoice Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the Senate well being committee, mentioned was a waste of cash.
The mock net web page on-line featured the C.D.C.’s acquainted blue banner throughout the highest, and the company’s blue-and-white brand together with the phrases “Vaccine Security.” The headline learn “Vaccines and Autism.”
The textual content laid out analysis each supporting and debunking a hyperlink between vaccines and autism, however left open the likelihood — way back refuted by scientists — that the pictures had been dangerous.
It included a quotation to a research by Brian S. Hooker, who’s the chief scientific officer of Kids’s Well being Protection, and to different research essential of vaccination.
“It’s a mix of issues which can be legitimately peer-reviewed and issues which can be bogus,” mentioned Dr. Bruce Gellin, who directed H.H.S.’s vaccine program within the Bush and Obama administrations.
“The footnotes provide the impression that it’s legit scientific work,” he added.
A collection of testimonials on the backside of the web page featured movies with titles like “Mom of three: I Will By no means Vaccinate Once more” and “We Signed His Life Away.”
This stands in stark distinction to the C.D.C.’s official web site on autism and vaccines, which is basically dedicated to debunking the thought of a connection and clearly states that “research have proven that there is no such thing as a hyperlink.”
Lately, Kids’s Well being Protection has taken a stand on the measles outbreak in West Texas.
The group’s CHD.TV channel posted an on-camera interview with the mother and father of a 6-year-old woman who was declared lifeless from measles by the state well being division, the primary reported measles demise in america in a decade.
The kid was unvaccinated and had no underlying medical situations, in response to the well being company. However Kids’s Well being Protection claimed it had obtained hospital data that contradicted the reason for demise.
The group additionally interviewed Dr. Ben Edwards, who handled the woman’s siblings and who’s one among two Texas docs — each various drugs practitioners — to whom Mr. Kennedy spoke concerning the outbreak.
In response to the video, Covenant Kids’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, launched an announcement this week saying {that a} “latest video circulating on-line accommodates deceptive and inaccurate claims,” and noting that confidentiality legal guidelines stop the hospital from offering info particularly associated to the case.
