The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee sets the federal government's autism research priorities. On August 27, 2026, its members — mostly appointed this year by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — voted 26 to 1, with 13 abstentions, to adopt a new 330-plus-page strategic plan. The plan itself does not name vaccines as a research priority. But during the meeting, multiple people pointed to vaccines as a possible cause of their children's autism. IACC member Laura Cellini said the plan is written to "close no door" on any potential trigger, including vaccination. No committee member challenged those claims. On August 10, President Trump signed an executive order that repeatedly tied vaccines to autism. In it, he directed HHS to draw up plans to cut the recommended childhood vaccine schedule.

1. Investigate Everything, Rule Out Nothing (Laura Cellini, IACC Member; HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

Genetics research hasn't explained rising autism rates, so nothing should be off the table — including vaccines.

Laura Cellini says the plan is deliberately open-ended. The Elucidate ASD founder and CEO told the committee: "We don't want to close the door for any potential trigger, and that would include things like glutamate or aspirin, or a vaccination. We are quite open to investigating anything and everything. This plan closes no door."

Kennedy is running his own research effort on a deadline. Kennedy says NIH's Autism Data Science Initiative has already funded 13 research awards that "will include vaccines among the potential factors that they examine." At the executive order signing, he said: "We have just over two years to finish the work, and I know you're impatient, and we are moving with an urgency that that deadline demands."

Kennedy built this committee to reach this outcome. He replaced most of the IACC's public members this year with new appointees. Several of them have publicly promoted the vaccine-autism theory. At the meeting, no one on the reshaped panel pushed back when the theory came up.

2. The Science Is Settled. A Federal Committee Staying Silent Is the Real Story (Alison Singer, Autism Science Foundation; Joseph Joyce, Autism Society of America)

Decades of research already answered this question. A committee that won't say so out loud has lost credibility it can't easily win back.

Alison Singer says the committee no longer represents the field. The Autism Science Foundation president, who helped form an independent research coalition after Kennedy's overhaul, says the reconstituted IACC "disproportionately represents a tiny subset of families who believe vaccines cause autism."

Helen Tager-Flusberg says the expertise to push back is gone. The autism researcher and I-ACC coalition member said: "Scientific expertise and institutional memory are critical...when those elements are missing, the committee cannot function as intended."

Joseph Joyce says the evidence hasn't changed, even if the committee has. The Autism Society of America's president and CEO points to decades of research involving millions of people finding no causal link between vaccines and autism. He said: "Parents deserve the freedom to make informed decisions about their children's healthcare, but that freedom depends on having accurate information."

FactCheck.org backs this group's account of the underlying science. It found several of Trump's and Kennedy's vaccine claims false or misleading, including the autism link, and traced rising diagnoses to broader diagnostic criteria and better recognition rather than an actual epidemic.

3. This Is the Wrong Fight. Fund Services, Not a Cause Hunt (Greg Robinson and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network)

Autistic people don't need the government re-litigating a debunked theory — they need housing, healthcare, and support funded now.

Greg Robinson was in the room. No one challenged the claims. Robinson, who is autistic, directs public policy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and sits on the IACC. People raised vaccines in the room, and no member challenged them. Robinson called that "a sign that a new normal has been established on this committee."

Robinson ties that silence to real harm. He said, "We are seeing right now the harms that come from misinformation around vaccines." He pointed to the two measles deaths in Pennsylvania.

ASAN says the theory behind the claims was already debunked once. The organization traces the theory to a fraudulent, retracted study. ASAN argues autistic people are still waiting for support while the government re-litigates something already disproven: "While the government spends time trying to prove something that has already been disproven, autistic people are still waiting for the support we actually need." The group's statement added: "Vaccines let autistic children live long enough to become autistic adults," and "Nothing about us, without us."

4. The Plan's Substance Is What Matters, Not the Room Talk (Sylvia Fogel, IACC Chair)

The vaccine comments got the headlines, but the plan itself is about wandering, aggression, and employment — needs the community has flagged for a decade.

Sylvia Fogel points to what's actually in the plan. Fogel, a psychiatrist and parent of a child with profound autism, chairs the IACC. She said: "There are members of our community who are drowning, literally in connection with wandering and elopement... but also figuratively day to day."

Fogel says the plan is built to fix that. She points to self-injury, aggression, and employment barriers as the priorities the plan actually funds.

Where This Lands

The written plan Kennedy's committee adopted doesn't put vaccines anywhere in its text. But nothing stopped people in the room from raising vaccines, and no member said the theory's been disproven. Singer and Joyce say the real story is that a scientific committee has lost the will, or the votes, to correct misinformation out loud. Robinson says the same silence is doing active harm. He points to Pennsylvania's measles deaths as proof that misinformation kills. Fogel says the plan's real content — funding for wandering, aggression, and job support — is getting lost underneath all of it.

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