Legal Action

Stipulated Order Proving CDC Has No Studies To Support Claim That Vaccines Given in First 6 Months of Life Do Not Cause Autism

In the summer of 2019, ICAN submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CDC requesting “All studies relied upon by CDC to claim that the DTaP vaccine does not cause autism.”

ICAN also submitted this same request for HepB, Hib, PCV13, and IPV, as well as requesting the CDC provide studies to support the cumulative exposure to these vaccines during the first six months of life do not cause autism.

Despite months of demands, the CDC failed to produce a single specific study in response to these FOIA requests.

ICAN was therefore forced to sue the CDC in federal court, where the CDC finally conceded, in a stipulation signed by a Federal court judge, that that it has no studies to support that any of these vaccines do not cause autism.

In the stipulation, the CDC was only able to identify 20 studies:

– One relating to MMR (a vaccine ICAN did not challenge)

– Thirteen relating to thimerosal (an ingredient not in any of the vaccines ICAN queried)

– Five relating to both MMR and thimerosal

– One relating to antigen (not a vaccine) exposure.

On the CDC’s list of studies was a recent review by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), paid for by the CDC, which conducted a comprehensive review for studies relating to whether DTaP does or does not cause autism. The result was that the IOM could not identify a single study to support that DTaP does not cause autism.  Instead, the only relevant study the IOM could identify found an association between DTaP and autism.

In other words, the CDC listed a review in response to the FOIA requests that proves that there are no studies to support that DTaP does not cause autism.

View PDF: Stipulated Order Proving CDC Has No Studies To Support Claim That Vaccines Given in First 6 Months of Life Do Not Cause Autism