{"id":448362,"date":"2026-02-04T10:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T10:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/448362\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T10:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T10:53:09","slug":"nih-boss-defies-rfk-jr-on-vaccines-and-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/448362\/","title":{"rendered":"NIH Boss Defies RFK Jr. on Vaccines and Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the National Institutes of Health admitted that he doesn\u2019t think vaccines cause autism, unlike his boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. <\/p>\n

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, 58, faced the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Tuesday. There, ranking member Bernie Sanders asked him point-blank, \u201cDo vaccines cause autism? Tell that to the American people: Yes or no?\u201d<\/p>\n

After trying to hedge and say he did not believe the measles vaccine causes autism, he finally admitted, \u201cI have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"WASHINGTON,Bernie Sanders demanded Bhattacharya answer whether he believed vaccines cause autism. Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The statement is a stark contrast to the beliefs of HHS Secretary Kennedy, who has spent much of his first year leading the Department of Health and Human Services pushing unproven theories that vaccines cause autism<\/a> (Kennedy has also baselessly claimed that circumcision and Tylenol<\/a> cause autism). <\/p>\n

Kennedy has made combating autism one of the major focuses of his reign as HHS Secretary, though his critics have said his focus is based on anti-vax conspiracies rather than established science around the condition.<\/p>\n

Last week, Kennedy overhauled the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee<\/a>, a federal advisory board on autism research, filling it with various vaccine skeptics. Alison Singer, the head of the Autism Science Foundation, told the New York Times that the new committee \u201cdisproportionately, excruciatingly so, represents an extremely small subset of families who believe vaccines cause autism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USKennedy has made autism research a focus of the HHS, though his critics say he is basing the research on baseless conspiracies tying vaccines to autism. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Unlike his boss, Bhattacharya was vocally pro-vaccine during Tuesday\u2019s hearing. Discussing the measles outbreak in the United States, he said, \u201cI am absolutely convinced that the measles epidemic that we are seeing currently is best solved by parents vaccinating their children for measles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States is currently facing measles outbreaks in states with low vaccination rates. In March, 2025, Kennedy, 72, trashed the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine <\/a>to Sean Hannity, saying its effectiveness \u201cwanes\u201d over time and said it is the cause of \u201call cases\u201d of the illness. Then, in May, he ordered the Centers for Disease Control to investigate taking vitamin A<\/a> to treat the disease. Doctors have said vitamin A can only be a supplement to help with measles, not a miracle cure. <\/p>\n

\"RFKBhattacharya grew his national profile with conservatives by criticizing COVID-19 protocols and downplaying the severity of the illness. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Bhattacharya raised his national profile among conservative politicians by downplaying the severity of COVID-19 and criticizing COVID-19 health protocols, like lockdowns. His conservative-friendly theories earned him the praise of MAGA figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and tech moguls Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. <\/p>\n

As NIH director, he praised rolling back COVID vaccine guidelines<\/a> for healthy children and pregnant women, calling it \u201cgood science.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HealthKennedy was grilled before the Senate in September. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Kennedy has already purged health agencies of doctors who have dared oppose his conspiratorial ideas. In June last year, he fired the entire Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices<\/a>, which advises the CDC on vaccine efficiency, and stuffed it with anti-vax members. He also demanded CDC head Susan Monarez<\/a> back his vaccine policies and purge those who refused. Monarez was fired in August for resisting Kennedy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the National Institutes of Health admitted that he doesn\u2019t think vaccines cause autism, unlike his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8634,97,18501,32810],"class_list":{"0":"post-448362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-bernie-sanders","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-national-institutes-of-health","11":"tag-robert-f-kennedy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}