![\"CDC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/112125cdc.jpg\")
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta AP Photo\/Ben Gray<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier this week, a new page titled \u201cVaccines and Autism<\/a>\u201d appeared on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Contrary to previous<\/a> CDC guidance<\/a>, the page alleged, \u201cThe claim \u2018vaccines do not cause autism\u2019 is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism,\u201d adding that \u201cstudies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.\u201d Those claims aren\u2019t supported by evidence<\/a>, but they do reflect talking points regularly promoted by anti-vaccine activists\u2014of which Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a leader.<\/p>\n I spoke with five CDC staffers on Thursday and Friday to find out their reactions to the announcement. While they declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, they all said that they and their colleagues were shocked and dismayed by the misinformation put forth on the new page. \u201cIt\u2019s horrifying, it\u2019s embarrassing, it\u2019s scary, it\u2019s heartbreaking\u2014it\u2019s all of those things,\u201d said a staffer at the CDC\u2019s Injury Center. \u201cTo see our agency being used to spread lies and misinformation is a gut punch,\u201d a CDC communicator with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease wrote in a message. \u201cPeople will be harmed by this\u2014parents will decide not to vaccinate their kids because of false information, and kids will get sick and die as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n Another longtime CDC employee who works in communications said, \u201cThe best way I can put it is it feels like we\u2019re on a hijacked airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n Several employees noted that there had been no warning about the new page before it was posted\u2014in fact, said the NCIRD staffer, even department leadership had \u201conly learned about it today when somebody saw it the same way everybody else did.\u201d<\/p>\n Others doubted the new page had gone through the agency\u2019s rigorous protocol for vetting public-facing information, which the longtime communications staffer said, \u201ccan be clunky and take a long time. It is the bane of many people\u2019s existence who work at CDC because it is so laborious and it requires so many different stages of review.\u201d The new page, on the other hand, \u201cpopped up without going through CDC clearance processes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even know who is updating these web pages, or if anyone at CDC has anything to do with any of that,\u201d said another staffer who works on immunizations. Department supervisors told employees that \u201ctheir understanding is that these updates to the website are not coming from CDC. Somebody at the HHS level is going in and changing these pages.\u201d<\/p>\n HHS did not respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people are starting to see that we can\u2019t fulfill our mission here, like I think it\u2019s that is becoming more and more clear and loud and unavoidable with each day.\u201d<\/p>\n