Multiple health agency websites on HIV, contraception taken down to comply with executive orders
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(WASHINGTON) — Government agency webpages about HIV, LGBTQ+ people and multiple other public health topics were down as of Friday evening due to President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Some of the terms being flagged for removal include pregnant people, chestfeeding, diversity, DEI and references to vaccines, health and gender equity, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity.
Entire databases have also been temporarily removed.
Researchers confirmed to ABC News they were scrambling to collect and archive as much data as possible from the sites before they were taken down.
Some pages might be returned to public view after the language is reviewed and removed, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC said, though it’s not clear which pages.
Removed pages included key CDC information on the rate of HIV diagnoses, breakdowns of infections by race and gender and the probability of HIV transmission by various forms of sex.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a national survey system that collects various habits on teenagers as well as their gender identity, is also down.
The CDC’s “HIV Risk Reduction Tool,” an interactive tool that allowed users to gauge the risk of certain sexual behaviors, has also been erased.
For now, the agency appears to have consolidated all of its information about the virus that causes AIDS into a single, simplified page titled, “About HIV.”
Another website, reproductiverights.gov, which provided resources on reproductive care and abortion access, was also removed. The Food and Drug Administration’s webpage titled “Minority Health and Health Equity” was also down.
Asked Friday afternoon in the Oval Office if government websites would be shut down to be scrubbed, the president said it wouldn’t be a “bad idea.”
“I don’t know — it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Trump said.
“DEI … would have ruined our country, and now it’s dead. I think DEI is dead. So, if they want to scrub the website, that’s OK with me. But I can’t tell you,” Trump continued. Trump’s executive order on DEI called for an “end” to any related policies within the federal government.
The other executive order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” directed the federal government to recognize only two sexes: male and female.
A memo sent to HHS officials on Wednesday directed subagencies such as the CDC to remove “all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology” by 5 p.m. on Friday.
(WASHINGTON) — During his confirmation hearings two weeks ago to lead the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated several unfounded claims about autism.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has made money through books, speeches and lawsuits while sharing vaccine skepticism, refused to say that vaccines don’t cause autism despite many high-quality studies finding no such link.
He stated during the hearing that autism rates have “have gone from 1 in 10,000 … and today in our children, it’s one in 34.” His claims have been repeated by President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
It’s unclear where Kennedy got his 1 in 10,000 statistic. In 2000, approximately 1 in 150 children in the U.S. born in 1992 were diagnosed with autism compared with 2020, during which one in 36 children born in 2012 were diagnosed, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some psychiatrists and autism experts told ABC News it’s important to highlight the rising rates of autism, and that at least Kennedy is putting a spotlight on it.
“On the bright side, I think it is really important to place an emphasis on these very high rates, it’s kind of great putting a spotlight on autism, these increased rates,” Dr. Karen Pierce, a professor in the department of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego and co-director of the UCSD Autism Center of Excellence, told ABC News. “We need more funding. We need more infrastructure to support everybody who is now recognized as on the spectrum. So, I think that that’s actually a really good thing.”
However, the experts said Kennedy and others are missing important context about why autism rates are increasing. They say reasons may include a combination of widening of the definition of the spectrum and of types of symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as well as people having children at older ages, better awareness and access to diagnostic testing.
“With the rates increasing, there certainly are valid reasons for that,” Pierce said. “There’s better awareness, and doctors can find autism a lot easier than they could before in the past…. and I think a very big reason is just better record keeping nowadays and easier access to reviewing records.”
What is autism?
ASD is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain, according to the CDC.
People with ASD often communicate, interact, behave and learn differently, the CDC says. ASD symptoms typically begin before age 3 and can last a lifetime, although symptoms may change over time.
“There can be differences in how one is reading social cues and interpreting them, and then there’s also certain behaviors that we see,” Dr. Anna Krasno, clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News.
“So those include a preference for sameness, a difficulty with transitioning, some cognitive and behavioral rigidity,” she continued. “We also see intense interests, so topics that people are super, super into and want to research, repetitive speech and motor movements. And then we also see really significant sensory differences as well.”
ASD is a spectrum, which means symptoms vary by person — some need little support in their daily lives and some may need a great deal of support in performing day-to-day activities. Some may have advanced conversation skills and others may be nonverbal.
Wider recognition, better understanding
Experts told ABC News there is a wider recognition and a better understanding of what is now understood as autism/ASD.
Traits of what is now known as ASD are built on early observations in the 1940s from Austrian-American psychiatrist Dr. Leo Kanner and Austrian physician Dr. Hans Asperger.
A 1943 paper from Kanner described 11 children who presented with “inborn autistic disturbances of affective contact” while Asperger’s 1944 report focused on boys who had marked social difficulties; unusual, circumscribed interests; and good verbal skills.
It was not until 1978 that autism was recognized as a developmental disorder distinct from schizophrenia by the World Health Organization. It was also in the 1970s that psychologists and psychiatrists first came to describe autism as a spectrum.
“When autism was first described, it was new to people understanding that there was a condition that included social communication difficulties and restricted and repetitive behavior, and people primarily only recognized it when it was at its most extreme,” Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, division director in child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University, told ABC News.
“And so, if you go back and read the initial descriptions today, those are kids who we would recognize in the waiting room, recognize in the grocery store, in whom autism would be very obvious and would not require much assessment in order to diagnose,” he continued.
Better diagnostic tools
Experts say another reason for the increase in rates is having better diagnostic tools than what was available decades ago.
There is no single tool used as the basis of an ASD diagnosis. Typically, tools rely on descriptions from parents or caregivers of a child’s development and a professional’s observation of a child’s behavior, according to the CDC.
Currently, the Autism Society encourages all children to be screened for signs of autism by their family pediatrician three times by the age of three — at nine, 18, and 24 or 30 months. If a child shows symptoms of ASD, more rigorous diagnostic testing can be carried out by a specialist including a full neuropsychological exam.
Additionally, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) provides standard criteria for helping diagnose autism.
Under DSM-5, a child meets the criteria if they have deficits in three areas of social communication and interaction and at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors.
While the first edition of DSM came out in 1952, it was not until the third edition, DSM-3, in which autism was listed under an entirely new “class” of conditions — the Pervasive Developmental Disorders.
Veenstra-VanderWeele said the change in the criteria is another reason why the number of those diagnosed with autism rose. He likened it to changing the definition of what it means to be tall.
“To just use a crude example, if you would define somebody as tall if they were over six-foot-six, and then 30 years later, say that somebody is tall if they’re over five-foot-10, you’d get very, very different numbers, and that’s part of what’s happened here,” he said.
Pierce added that because of limited knowledge and awareness in the past, there may have been many children who were underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.
“It’s understandable that people wouldn’t even necessarily think that somebody has autism, because nobody knew what really autism was,” she said. “So, you know, large numbers of people were just put in the books as just having special education needs, maybe as a language delay or of having a cognitive impairment.”
Older reproductive age
Some studies have suggested that people who become pregnant at an older age have an increased risk of giving birth to a child with autism.
A 2012 review and meta-analysis of 16 papers from researchers in New York, London, Israel and Sweden found an association between advanced maternal age and the risk of autism.
Advanced paternal age may also be a risk factor. A 2006 study conducted jointly by researchers in New York, London and Israel found that men who were above age 40 were 5.75 times more likely to have a child with ASD compared to men younger than age 30 after controlling for other factors.
However, questions still swirl about whether or not there is a risk from the age of parents, and not all researchers are convinced.
“I know that there is some research looking at maternal and paternal age with regard to autism, and there’s research around environmental causes,” Krasno said. “I think where I always firmly land is that it is inherited, and it is genetic. So, I don’t know the exact correlation between age and diagnostic rate, but we do know that genetics are highly associated with diagnosis.”
Environmental risk factors
Researchers are also divided over whether or not environmental risk factors play a role in causing autism.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says the “clearest evidence” involves events before and during birth, including prenatal exposure to air pollution or pesticides; maternal obesity or diabetes; extreme prematurity; and periods of oxygen deprivation to the brain during birth.
“But these factors alone are unlikely to cause autism. Rather, they appear to increase a child’s likelihood for developing autism when combined with genetic factors,” NIEHS states on its website.
Pierce said from the studies she’s read, evidence suggests autism is a genetic condition. She added the environmental factors may play a role but “to a small degree.”
Myth that vaccines cause autism
The myth that vaccines cause autism was born out of a fraudulent 1998 study, hypothesizing that the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine caused intestinal inflammation, which, in turn, led to the development of autism.
The paper has since been discredited by health experts, retracted from the journal in which it was published, and its primary author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license after an investigation found he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research.
More than a dozen high-quality studies have since found no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.
However, Kennedy has held fast to this claim, saying during a 2023 interview on Fox News that he believes autism comes from vaccines.
During the HHS confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he was not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety.” At the same time, Kennedy repeatedly refused throughout the hearings to say that vaccines were not linked to autism, while still insisting he supports vaccination in general.
Experts told ABC News there is no evidence to suggest a link between vaccines and autism, and perpetuating the myth can be dangerous.
“Once there’s a lie and it’s spread, it doesn’t matter that it’s a lie. Once people hear it, then they believe that it’s true despite all of the Herculean efforts to disprove it and debunk it,” Pierce said. “There’s no evidence for it whatsoever, and there’s actually extremely, as far as scientific evidence is concerned, there’s extremely strong evidence to suggest absolutely not.”
Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, said the false claim that vaccines cause autism can divert financial resources from much-needed research.
“Instead of advancing support and therapies, time and funding are wasted disproving a debunked theory,” he said. “This misinformation also fuels stigma, implying that autism is something to be feared rather than understood and supported, leading to discrimination against autistic individuals.”
ABC News’ Dr. Jade Cobern, Cheyenne Haslett and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As measles cases continue to spread across the United States, many Americans may be asking themselves if they need a measles vaccine booster to enhance protection.
An outbreak in western Texas has grown to 279 cases, mostly among those who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown. Meanwhile, an outbreak in nearby New Mexico has also increased, reaching 38 cases as of Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people receive two vaccine doses, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says.
Most vaccinated adults don’t need another vaccine dose, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He also said it’s important to call another shot of the MMR vaccine “a dose” as opposed to a “booster.”
He explained that the measles vaccine used to be a single-dose vaccine before a second dose was recommended in the late 1980s.
“In the late ’80s, there were sort of big outbreaks of measles,” Offit told ABC News. “But if you looked at the epidemiology of those outbreaks, it was in people who never got a vaccine.”
He went on, “So it wasn’t that the immunity faded, that the vaccine wasn’t good enough. It’s an excellent vaccine as a single-dose vaccine. The problem was people didn’t get it. So, the second dose recommendation really was to give children a second chance to get a first dose.”
Depending on the year you were born
If someone was born before 1957, they are presumed to have life-long immunity against measles, Offit said.
Before the MMR vaccine was available, nearly everyone was infected with measles, mumps and rubella during childhood, according to the CDC.
Those with a confirmed laboratory diagnosis of measles are protected from the virus, the agency adds.
In 1963, the first measles vaccine became available, followed by an improved vaccine in 1968, said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccinologist and co-director of The Atria Research Institute — which focuses on disease prevention.
A very small number of people, representing less than 5% of Americans, may have received the inactivated measles vaccine from 1963 through 1967 during childhood, which may not have offered sufficient protection against the virus. These people would be eligible for re-vaccination with one or two doses, the CDC says.
“So, the first measles vaccine licensed in the U.S. was in 1963 and it was an inactivated vaccine,” he told ABC News. “That inactivated vaccine had two consequences to it. One, it did not produce protective immunity and, number two, it led to — when people did get exposed and infected — it led to atypical measles, and that can be very severe.”
Poland said, at the time, there was also a live attenuated measles vaccine, similar to what is used today “but it was not very attenuated or weakened, and so it caused a lot of side effects.”
He explained that to decrease side effects, physicians would give a patient a vaccine and then a shot of immunoglobulin, or antibodies. While this decreased side effects, it also tended to kill the vaccine virus, not giving people adequate immunity.
For those who were vaccinated with the single-dose vaccine similar to the one used today — or received the MMR vaccine — Offit said another dose is likely not needed.
In 1989, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians recommended children receive a second MMR dose.
Offit and Poland said anyone who has received two doses of the MMR vaccine does not need to receive another dose.
If someone is unsure if they are immune to measles, they should first try to find their vaccination records. If they cannot find written documentation, there is generally no harm in receiving another dose of the MMR vaccine, according to the CDC. A health care provider can also test blood to determine whether someone is immune, but this is generally not recommended.
In the face of the growing measles outbreak, the CDC issued an alert on March 7 saying parents in the outbreak area should consider getting their children an early third dose of the MMR vaccine.
Texas health officials have also recommended early vaccination for infants living in outbreak areas.
This would result in three doses overall: an early dose between age 6 months and 11 months and then the two regularly scheduled doses.
Poland says it’s important to note that this dose is only for infants living in high-risk areas or going to visit high-risk areas and not recommended for most children.
“Generally, the reason we don’t give [the vaccine] at an early age is that, if the mother was immunized or had disease, the antibodies that she has are passed through the placenta to the baby — those last around 12 months,” he said. “If you give the vaccine prior to that, then some amount of that live virus vaccine will be killed by the mother’s antibodies circulating in the baby, and so it’s not long-lasting, high-titer immunity.”
(LUBBOCK, Texas) — The measles outbreak in western Texas is continuing to grow with 20 additional cases confirmed, bringing the total to 279 cases, according to new state data published Tuesday.
Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Just two cases are among fully vaccinated individuals. At least 36 people have been hospitalized so far, the state said.
In the Texas outbreak, children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, at 120, followed by children ages 4 and under making up 88 cases, the DSHS data shows.
“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities,” the DSHS said in its update.
The number of measles cases in Texas is close to the number confirmed for the entirety of last year in the U.S., which saw 285 cases nationwide, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two likely measles deaths have been reported so far in the U.S. this year. The first reported death was in Texas, according to the DSHS. The child did not have any known underlying conditions, according to the department.
The death was the first U.S. measles death recorded in a decade, according to data from the CDC.
A possible second measles death was recorded after an unvaccinated New Mexico resident tested positive for the virus following their death. The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) said the official cause of death is still under investigation.
New Mexico has reported a total of 33 measles cases so far this year, according to the NMDOH. Many of the cases have been confirmed in Lea County, which borders western Texas.
Health officials suspect there may be a connection between the Texas and New Mexico cases, but a link has not yet been confirmed.
The CDC has confirmed 301 measles cases in at least 14 states so far this year, including Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington, according to new data published Friday.
The majority of nationally confirmed cases are in people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, the CDC said. Of those cases, 3% are among those who received just one dose of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) inoculation and 2% are among those who received the required two doses, according to the CDC.
The CDC recommends that people receive two doses of the MMR vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second dose between ages 4 and 6 years old.
One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster, per the health agency.
In the face of the growing measles outbreak, the federal health agency issued an alert on March 7 saying parents in the outbreak area should consider getting their children an early third dose of the MMR vaccine. Texas health officials have also recommended early vaccination for infants living in outbreak areas.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
