By Leah Douglas and Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. autism advisory board remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to include vaccine skeptics aims to steer federal research spending toward investigating causes of the condition, as well as other issues like co-occurring medical disorders, according to some new panel members.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has suggested the inoculations cause autism, contrary to scientific evidence, reset the Interagency
Autism Coordinating Committee in January with 21 new public members. More than a third of the new committee members have also promoted the debunked link between vaccines and autism.
Some autism experts, including former committee members, have said the new members could undermine federal autism research. This week, some former members created their own alternative advisory board, the latest in a series of similar efforts by public health experts concerned about Kennedy's overhaul of federal vaccine policy and what they see as misinformation coming from agencies he oversees.
No rigorous studies have found links between autism and vaccines or medications. Autism experts attribute rising rates of the condition largely to more inclusive diagnosis criteria.
The committee, due to first meet on March 19, will provide non-binding guidance to Kennedy on federal autism research priorities, including recommendations on allocating hundreds of millions of dollars in research spending.
Kennedy has promised President Donald Trump he will identify the cause of autism, which most researchers suggest is linked in part to genetics and exposure in utero to pollutants or harmful contaminants. Many of Kennedy's supporters in the Make America Healthy Again movement - some of whom were named to the committee - also believe vaccines can cause autism and advocate for fewer childhood vaccinations.
Committee chair Sylvia Fogel, a psychiatrist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, told Reuters the committee will address gaps in autism research like causal triggers in an effort to better serve people with profound autism and their families.
"Autism is not monolithic. Federal strategy should reflect that complexity rather than flatten it," Fogel said.
Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the new committee is meant to unite a range of voices and that "expanding perspectives on the panel does not change the fact that federal research is grounded in rigorous science."
SOME MEMBERS LINK VACCINES AND AUTISM
Until January's overhaul, major autism groups like the Simons Foundation and Autism Speaks, and researchers from universities including Johns Hopkins and Tufts accounted for most of the committee's 21 members from the public.
That panel recommended further research into co-occurring physical and behavioral health conditions, like epilepsy, gastrointestinal issues and anxiety disorders, according to a draft 2024 report.
David Sitcovsky, vice president of advocacy at Autism Speaks, said in a statement that broader representation would strengthen the committee, but that its impact would depend on retaining a grounding in science.
The new panel contains more activists, just three autistic self-advocates - the minimum required by law - down from seven, and few representatives from research universities. At least eight have tied vaccination to autism or are connected to organizations that support those claims, including several who say their children developed autism after being vaccinated, according to a Reuters review of their public statements and affiliations.
Panel member Ginger Taylor, who created a website called "How Do Vaccines Cause Autism?", wrote in a Substack post that her top priority for the committee is investigating the link between vaccines and autism.
John Gilmore, a new panel member and co-founder of the Autism Action Network who says his 26-year-old son developed autism after being vaccinated, said he wants to steer more research toward rising autism rates.
"A lot of the voices that are on the (committee) now have been deliberately excluded for 20-odd years," he said.
Several, including Gilmore and Fogel, appeared on panels at a September autism event hosted by the MAHA Institute, whose president, Mark Gorton, is an anti-vaccine activist and was a significant funder of Kennedy's 2024 presidential campaign.
Asked how some members' views on vaccines will affect the committee's work, Fogel said studies of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines have not shown a causal link to autism.
"That body of available evidence is substantial and must be acknowledged," Fogel said.
Still, research should examine how various exposures, including immune or inflammatory stress, might affect autism outcomes, she said.
EXPERT CONCERNS
On Tuesday, a dozen autism advocates, researchers and several former committee members formed the Independent Autism Coordination Committee to create its own strategic plan for autism research.
Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation and a prior government committee member, said investing federal dollars into researching a link between vaccines and autism, which most experts consider settled science, would cut into funding for other research opportunities, like autism's heritability or link to environmental exposures.
"There’s not a bottomless pit of money at the NIH that can be used to fund research," Singer said. "If we devote our very limited resources towards reinvestigating vaccines, we won’t have money to look at actual potential causes of autism."
(Reporting by Leah Douglas and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
