RFK Jr., CDC, and the Never-Ending Vaccine Lie
The mic gets the light. The people living it stay in the dark.
The headline should read: *“RFK Jr. repeats debunked vaccine myth”*. Or *“No evidence supports autism–vaccine link”*. Instead, it says “RFK Jr. contradicts CDC on causes of autism” — as if he and the CDC are two equally credible sides of a coin, flipping in the wind.
The coin is autistic people. And the toss is the same one we’ve been trapped in for 25 years — the one that started with a fraudulent paper, spiraled into a global panic, and left children dead from measles, whooping cough, and other preventable diseases.
Here’s what actually happened: RFK Jr., political celebrity with a decades-long record of vaccine misinformation, told a reporter he doesn’t buy the CDC’s conclusion that autism is not caused by vaccines. The CDC’s position is based on hundreds of studies, millions of children’s medical records, and every major health authority on earth. His is based on a story scientifically dead since the early 2000s — but still pulling donations, clicks, and fearful parents.
And MSN, like too many before it, treated that as a “debate.”
When you strip the quotes, here’s the skeleton:
- RFK Jr. says the CDC is wrong.
- CDC says RFK Jr. is wrong.
- Autistic people? Silent, because we’re not even written in as stakeholders — only as a problem to solve.
The harm isn’t subtle: Linking autism to vaccines has never just been an error. It has cost autistic people research into real support needs. It has cost parents years of guilt and desperate, harmful “cures” — from bleach enemas to chelation therapy, hyperbaric chambers, starvation diets, and other physical assaults disguised as treatment. It has kept our existence framed as something that could — and should — have been prevented. It is eugenics in plain language, diluted only enough to pass on cable news.
When a headline says “contradicts,” it smuggles in the idea that the truth is somewhere in the middle. That autism’s origins are still an open case. That parents should keep fearing the pediatrician’s needle.
Let’s reverse the frame: If non-autistic neurology were falsely tied to a dangerous medical procedure, and every study disproved it, would a major outlet publish “contradicts” without saying the claim was false in the headline itself? No — because the social cost of defaming the majority is too high.
Better questions the reporter didn’t ask:
- Why do outlets keep recycling a debunked myth as if it’s new?
- What responsibility does a newsroom have when amplifying a public figure with a track record of scientific distortion?
- How does framing autism as preventable feed stigma, strip services, and fuel abusive “therapies”?
This is not a debate. It’s a rerun. Every time a headline turns settled science into a two-sided drama, autistic people lose. Not abstractly — directly. In policy. In funding. In how strangers see us. In how parents decide whether to accept their child or chase a cure.
The question is not whether RFK Jr. can “contradict” the CDC. The question is why the press keeps treating autism like a prop in his act.