By Maryanne Demasi
Brownstone Institute
January 22, 2026
For the first time in a generation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has rewritten its official position on whether vaccines can cause autism.
This is a change that could reshape one of the most politically charged and emotionally fraught debates in modern medicine.
In a website update published on 19 November 2025, the agency now states that the long-standing claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is "not an evidence-based claim" because scientific studies "have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism."