Vaccines save lives every single day.
Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted misleading information suggesting there is a link between vaccines and autism — a statement that has been thoroughly disproven by decades of rigorous scientific research. Science can’t prove something “never happens” because that would require testing every person in every place under every condition — an impossible task. Instead, science builds confidence in our understanding of how things work by looking at data on the possibility that something could happen. If there was a true association between immunizations and autism we would see that possibility in the very extensive research data — and we do not.
As the executive director of the New Hampshire Public Health Association, I want to emphasize how serious and dangerous this new messaging is.
Vaccines are among the safest and most effective tools we have to protect public health. Because of widespread immunization, diseases that once harmed or killed thousands —measles, polio, Hib, whooping cough — are now rare or entirely preventable in the United States. That progress is real and it is fragile.
When misinformation appears, especially from a major federal agency, it creates confusion, undermines trust and threatens years of hard-won protection. The CDC’s own scientists indicated that this messaging did not follow their typical scientific review process. Families deserve better. The evidence is overwhelming: vaccines do not cause autism. They save lives every single day.