Ashley Mathy and Cindy Bentley, who both identify as having autism, record a video for the Self Determination channel on YouTube, a project of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD). States Newsroom spoke with three medical experts about the state of research as well as the complexity involved in understanding autism spectrum disorder. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin BPDD)

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stirred up major concerns and considerable speculation earlier this year when he announced the administration would release a report revealing the causes of autism by the end of September. 

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical degree, stood next to President Donald Trump on Sept. 22 as they presented the over-the-counter drug Tylenol as one potential driving factor behind autism diagnoses and pointed to folate, a B vitamin, as a possible treatment — both conclusions the medical community hasn’t yet reached. 

Kennedy throughout his tenure has also made overly broad and disparaging statements about people who have an autism diagnosis, often referring to traits exhibited in people with the most severe cases. For example, he claimed in April that children with autism would never function as independent adults, drawing intense criticism for making a generalization that would not apply to every person with a diagnosis.

The Trump-Kennedy announcement and Kennedy’s characterizations have raised questions about why someone would be diagnosed, what types of research have been done and what reputable science has found about causes. 

States Newsroom spoke with three experts before the announcement to gain a better understanding of autism spectrum disorder. Below are brief excerpts from those interviews. 

What is autism spectrum disorder? 

The two core characteristics of autism are challenges with social communication and the presence of restrictive and repetitive behavior, according to Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. 

As understanding of the diagnosis has evolved, she explained, researchers and families have increasingly referred to it as autisms, plural, instead of autism, singular, in part, because there are so many different subtypes.

“It makes it more accurate when describing it — that autism is not just one entity of core autism features, that there is so much diversity across the spectrum, that it’s actually a group of developmental disorders,” Halladay said. 

The spectrum, she said, ranges from people who may speak rarely to those who are fluent in language, people with cognitive disabilities to those with IQs of more than 120 and people who can live independently to those who need round-the-clock care.

Dr. Michael Murray, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Penn State College of Medicine, described it as “a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that people are born with it and it’s lifelong and it can cause a variety of challenges for people.”

“The most common and significant and probably pervasive symptom across the spectrum is challenges in understanding and interpreting what we call neurotypical — meaning everyone who is non-autistic — social behavior,” Murray said. “So just understanding all the non-verbal parts of social communication, understanding nuance and non-literal use of language. All those things can be really difficult for autistic people.”

Approximately 1 in 31 children in the United States and 1 in 45 adults fall somewhere along the autism spectrum,  according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a paper published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 

How is autism diagnosed?

Only an expert can diagnose an autism spectrum disorder using criteria in a guide used by health care professionals called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. 

“You need someone who knows autism, who knows what to look for, who knows how to elicit behaviors or not elicit behaviors that are indicative of an autism diagnosis,” Halladay said. “So it’s really diagnosed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or somebody else who’s trained to understand what autism is and what it’s not.”

Murray said there are three social communication behaviors that doctors or other qualified medical professionals look for when considering whether to diagnose someone with autism. 

“It is difficulty in interpreting social information. It is difficulty giving social information through things like facial expression and tone of voice. And thirdly, is a difficulty maintaining appropriate peer relationships,” Murray said. “Now, once again, this is from a neurotypical description of peer relationships. There’s a lot of talk among neurodivergent individuals about whether that’s fair, that we rate social relationships based on how we think they should be. But nonetheless, that’s the criteria.”

Murray explained experts also observe the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors in assessing whether someone has autism. 

“And that captures things that are in the realm of interacting with the physical world around you,” Murray said. “So that need for sameness and inflexibility maintaining routines.”

Carissa Cascio, a senior scientist at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute and Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training, reinforced that autism is “strictly diagnosed based on behavior.”

“There are genes that have an association with autism that you can test for. There’s some genes that have a very strong association, and you can do a test for the presence of one of those genes,” Cascio said. “But for the diagnosis of autism itself, it’s strictly based on behavior.”

What do we know about the causes of autism?

While more scientific research is needed, a combination of genetics and environmental factors is responsible for the formation of autism spectrum disorders. 

“We know that one of the largest causes of autism is genetics. We know this because it runs in families,” Halladay said, adding there “are over 150 known genes associated with autism.”

“If there’s a variation in the gene, there’s a high likelihood of having an autism diagnosis,” she said. “And those genes are genes that tell cells in the brain where to go and how to connect, which seems to be a core biological feature of autism.”

Halladay emphasized that research has established the “most important part is the interaction between genetics and the environment.”

“Neither the gene nor the environmental factor is strong enough, but together, they increase the probability of having a child with autism,” Halladay explained. 

During the last 25 years, as Murray has advanced in his career, the medical community’s thinking about and understanding of autism spectrum disorders has “significantly increased.”

“We know right now that 80 to 90% of autism is accounted for by genetic differences …. It’s not just you got exposed to this thing in the environment, now you have autism. You have to have the genetic susceptibility first and then the environment might make it more likely, or maybe influence the expression of it,” Murray said.

Cascio said that when it comes to environmental factors, studies have shown pregnancy or the very early post-natal time frame are key. 

“We’re still parsing this out, but some of the environmental factors that seem to have more evidence behind them than others are older parental age, perinatal trauma, premature birth and low birth weight,” Cascio said. “And then there’s some maternal health factors that are gathering some evidence as well. So maternal infection and immune response, maternal exposure to medications or pollutants are sort of gathering some evidence.” 

While much more research is needed on the many potential environmental factors, Cascio said scientists know vaccines are not a component. 

“The things that we definitely can rule out are things that have been studied in great depth and not really produced much association. So you know, the idea that vaccines cause autism is a common belief. There have been dozens and dozens of studies that have all failed to find any association between vaccines and autism,” Cascio said.

There’s also not yet a clear link with Tylenol, also called acetaminophen, as a possible environmental factor. 

“It is unlikely that this is the smoking gun that they’re hoping for,” Cascio said. “I think we all want to understand this better, but this is certainly not something that we feel has a strong weight of evidence behind it yet.”

A spokesperson for Kenvue, the company that manufactures Tylenol, wrote in a statement released in connection with the Trump-Kennedy press conference that “acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy.  

“Without it, women face dangerous choices: suffer through conditions like fever that are potentially harmful to both mom and baby or use riskier alternatives. High fevers and pain are widely recognized as potential risks to a pregnancy if left untreated.”

Why have autism diagnoses increased over several decades? 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has repeatedly raised concerns with an increase in autism diagnoses over several decades, but experts say there are logical reasons for this. 

“In the early 1990s the CDC set up a system to collect and count the number of people with autism,” Halladay said. “So it definitely has increased since then, but one of the main reasons that’s been shown over and over again is access to services.”

Halladay believes most of the increase is due to greater knowledge and access, though she said, “there is room for some of the increase in autism to be a true increase in the number of people with autism due to something else.”

Murray explained that about 60% to 70% of people diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are characterized as having “low-support needs, meaning that they clearly have the features of autism, but they are able to, with the appropriate level of supports, be in traditional schools or typical schools; they can, with job support, work and lead their lives the way they choose to.”

When Murray began his career, he said, those people never would have been diagnosed as having autism.  

“Secondly, we as a professional community are getting better and better at picking up these symptoms, particularly in kids who are quite young,” Murray said.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Cascio said, a new version of the DSM and better tools helped medical professionals more accurately diagnose people along the entire autism spectrum. 

Additionally, Cascio said, there’s a similar concept called diagnostic substitution, where people who in the past may have been diagnosed with something else are now being correctly diagnosed with autism. 

How much research has been done on autism and over how many years?

Scientists have been researching autism for decades, building on past work to better understand how to diagnose and assist people across the spectrum, though experts said more is needed.

“The many, many scientific discoveries and funding into understanding autism has promoted scientists moving into the field,” Halladay said. “So there’s clearly an increased number over the past two decades of the number of people who are focused on studying autism.”

Murray said the first papers published in scientific journals regarding autism were in 1944. 

“So it is 80 years, at a minimum, of work,” Murray said.

Murray reiterated that autism spectrum disorders are not simple to study and said a “really important paper came out earlier this year talking about how there’s four genetically recognizable subtypes of autism. So it’s not a single autism. It is, at the very least, four autisms, and probably more.”

Cascio said addressing any aspect of autism is complicated.

“The behavior is complex. The genetics are complex. The brain is complex,” Cascio said. “And so this makes it a huge challenge for research. And there’s certainly no possibility that we would go from not fully understanding the causes of autism to having a definitive cause in five months.”

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about autism? 

The internet has led to misinformation, and in many cases disinformation, and health diagnoses are no exception.  

Halladay said people often try to simplify autism or believe an actor’s portrayal in a television show or movie is representative of everyone on the spectrum. 

“I think that because of the narrative of autism being oversimplified, that people are not understanding that it’s a more complex disorder,” she said. 

Murray said the autism spectrum may be pictured as a straight line and an expectation arises when someone is diagnosed that they are in just one spot. 

“That’s not really the way it is. There are needs or strengths that show up variably depending on the demands of the situation,” Murray said. “So for instance, someone who has a really exquisite sensitivity to sound, if they are attending a symphony, that may make that experience so much more rich for him or her versus the average person. 

“But if they are at a rock concert, it may be overwhelming. The same trait can be a source of vulnerability or a strength depending on the situation.”

Murray said there’s often a misconception that all people with autism are antisocial or don’t want to make and maintain friendships.  

“And that’s true for some people, right? They aren’t really interested in social interactions. It’s not their thing,” Murray said. “It’s also true for some neurotypical people that they’re really not interested in social interactions. But the vast, vast majority of autistic individuals just want a friend, and they want someone who they can count on and rely on. They want to be loved, just like everyone else in the world … They just need more supports or different situations to have that happen.”

Cascio said that people can form misconceptions after seeing actors portray people along the spectrum.

“I first became interested in autism after watching the movie ‘Rain Man,’” Cascio said. “And I think there’s a lot of people who see a depiction like that and think, ‘Okay, this is what autism looks like.’ And there’s just so much more complexity and variability from person to person and I would say that’s probably the biggest misconception.”

Cascio said it’s also human nature to want one clear answer to why someone develops autism or any other health diagnosis, but that oftentimes the best science shows a more complicated picture. 

“It’s uncomfortable for us to say, ‘This is really complex and we don’t understand it yet,’” she said. “And so when there is something that people hold up and say, ‘Here’s an explanation.’ I think it can be really tempting for people to just want to have it solved. And that’s a very natural reaction.”

Megan Hufton, seen here with her sons AJ, left, and Asher, center, is education and training specialist with the Autism Society of South Central Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of Megan Hufton)

Megan Hufton’s two sons, AJ and Asher, both have been diagnosed with autism. Neither speaks.

But she doesn’t see autism as the “horrible, horrible crisis,” President Donald Trump described at a Washington, D.C., press conference Monday. 

Nor does she agree with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said at an April press conference that “autism destroys families” and is an “individual tragedy as well.”

Hufton said Monday that the message she hears in such statements is that “it’s going to be a horrible, horrible tragedy” if a family member is autistic. “It’s not the way I describe our family or our lives at all.”

People with autism, their family members and advocates said the messages coming from the Trump administration are harmful and wrong. 

”People with autism are being identified as [a] population of people whose existence the government seeks to prevent or change into people who are more ‘normal,’” said Beth Swedeen, executive director of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD), in a statement Monday. “Autistic Americans have the same unalienable rights as all Americans, the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. We all find different ways to achieve these things, and it is the individual, not the government, who decides our own worth.”

“People with autism have always existed,” said BPDD Chair Sydney Badeau. “We are part of what humanity looks like, and we are amazing.”

In interviews, four Wisconsin residents with autistic family members and an adult autistic self-advocate expressed similar views.

After years in which attitudes towards autism and understanding of people with autism have been improving, “this is taking everything back,” said Heather Murray, a Waunakee child care provider whose 20-year-old son has grown up with autism.

“It’s frustrating to hear it still being called a disease,” Murray said. Autism encompasses a broad spectrum of behaviors that might come with mild or severe disabilities for some people, she said, but it’s not a disease that can be cured.

“It is a way of being,” Murray said. “It is who they are. You can’t take the autism away from them.”

Jenny Price of Madison has a 16-year-old son who is autistic. An active volunteer in advocating for Wisconsin parents whose children have disabilities, Price said she’s been paying attention to how Kennedy has talked about autism since he took office at HHS.

Kennedy has said “that autism is something to be feared, it is epidemic, it steals our children, it ruins families — which are all things we know are not true and I just find it pretty unhelpful,” Price said.

At the Monday press conference Trump and Kennedy focused on claims that linked the use of Tylenol (acetaminophen) during pregnancy to autism. Medical experts said the evidence does not support those claims.

“Current research shows an association, but it is limited and inconclusive,” said Rechelle Chaffee, executive director of Autism United of Wisconsin, based in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. “Autism we know is not caused by a  single factor. It’s caused by multiple variables.”

In addition to being the parent of two autistic teens, Hufton is the education and training specialist for the Autism Society of South Central Wisconsin.

“Some of the strongest scientific evidence that we’ve seen shows that there is no causal link” between acetaminophen and autism, Hufton said. “We support scientific based research, but also we want to make sure that research is grounded in science, it’s grounded in compassion and respect for these individuals, and really just making sure that we’re promoting inclusion.”

Trump also made references to debunked claims linking vaccines to autism.

“We’ve studied vaccines,” Hufton said. “They’ve been studied for decades and the research doesn’t support this claim. So it definitely makes us concerned about this messaging that is once again just kind of implying that there’s this single cause of autism and the fear behind it.”

Chaffee said that while $418 million was spent in 2020 on autism research, just 8% of that went to research on improving the quality of support and services for people with autism and their families.

“That’s not a significant amount of money going to improve the lives of people,” she said. “That is a missed opportunity to say the least.”

Price doesn’t expect that to improve in the current administration.

“Are they doing research into what supports or what types of programs make the lives of people with autism better? It’s pretty clear they’re not,” Price said. “Are they going to look for ways to support kids with autism or other learning disabilities in school? No, they’re going to remove anything with the word inclusion from the Department of Education grants.”

Erin Miller, 40, is a resident of Milwaukee’s south suburbs and has lived with autism her whole life. 

“I’m really growing weary of all of the speculation around what causes it.” Miller said.

She wants to see more research on how to help people who have autism and are trying to live full lives now. Those include research on subjects that range from accommodations for autistic women in nursing homes, to research on sleep to improving education services and employment practices that recognize the needs of autistic people.

“I would like to see more practical services that improve our life today,” Miller said. 

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Michele Gay, co-founder of Safe and Sound Schools and mother to a student who was killed in the 2014 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, is attending the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs (TSD) Conference in November to talk about safety for all students in all educational settings, including the school bus.

At her TSD keynote on Friday, Nov. 9, Gay will discuss “Developmentally Appropriate Safety Education” and how schools can develop safety curriculum and training that supports and accommodates the unique needs of students and staff of all ages, abilities and educational levels. During her keynote, Gay looks to empower student transportation professionals to provide the appropriate kinds of training that will ensure student safety.

She will discuss how transportation can prepare staff to quickly and safely handle situations on or near the school bus, while keeping the physical and psychological safety of the students as the focal goal. As a very visible sign of students’ presence, the school bus can often be a target, and Gay looks to equip student transporters to protect the “rolling classroom” and the students onboard.

Gay began her work in the educational field as an elementary school teacher at the age of 21. She became a mom of three. She described one daughter, Josephine Grace or “Joey” as she was affectionally called, as “especially special” with many unique traits that came along with an autism diagnosis. Gay said she lived the day-to-day experiences of supporting a child with visual impairment, apraxia of speech, fine and gross motor skills. She shared that her daughter always made the most of life and that her goal as a mother and educator was to help her daughter navigate the world with those unique challenges.

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Gay was a guest on the School Transportation Podcast, where she shared more about the reason why behind her work for student safety. Listen to the full episode here.

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After the devastating shooting Dec. 12, 2014, and Joey’s murder along with that of 19 other 6- and 7-year-old students and six adult school staff members, Gay and her family was faced with the heartbreaking reality of the dangers that students encounter. She then founded Safe and Sound Schools, a national non-profit school safety advocacy and resource center, alongside Alissa Parker, who lost her daughter Emilie in the Sandy Hook shooting. Since then, Gay has been sharing how communities can create a comprehensive and sustainable approach to safety.

An experienced and educated advocate, Gay has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. She has addressed national audiences through media outlets, schools, law enforcement agencies and more. She continues to be a leading advocate for student safety, inspired by Josephine and all children like her.

Save $100 on main conference registration with the Early Bird Discount, available through Oct.4. The TSD Conference will be held Nov. 6 through Nov. 11 at Embassy Suites Dallas-Frisco Hotel and Convention Center Visit tsdconference.com to register and view the conference agenda, which includes four keynotes and dozens of educational sessions all focused on transportation of students with special needs.

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Related: TSD Keynote Speaker Looks to Reveal Power of Praise in Student Transportation
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The post Mother of Sandy Hook Victim Brings Student Safety Message to TSD appeared first on School Transportation News.

A Nashville family is raising serious concerns after a 5-year-old kindergartner with autism was mistakenly placed on a school bus and then left wandering alone for nearly an hour on Monday afternoon, reported WSMV 4.

Zontrail Brinson, a nonverbal student at Ida B. Wells Elementary School, was supposed to be picked up by a parent at school dismissal. However, school officials said there was a “tagging error,” and Brinson was placed on a school bus then dropped off several blocks away, alone and unsupervised.

“It’s scary. I wouldn’t want to be alone by myself, especially being nonverbal,” said Rosalind Derrick, Brinson’s grandmother.

She explained that the family only learned of the incident when Brinson’s mother arrived at the school to pick him up and was told he wasn’t there.

Derrick told local news reporters that Brinson was dropped off at the intersection of 7th Street and Howerton, near Meigs Middle School, and began walking down the sidewalk. She said the school bus driver briefly spoke to the child but received no response and allowed him to exit the bus.

“When you didn’t see an adult, you should have just called the school or taken him back to the school,” she advised.

Brinson was eventually located by a police officer at a nearby playground and safely reunited with his family. While thankful unharmed, Derrick said the ordeal is every parent and guardian’s nightmare.

“I’m a praying grandmother. I was just praying and trusting that he would be found and everything would be okay,” she said.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) acknowledged the incident and apologized.

“We deeply regret the distress this caused the family and are grateful the student was found safe,” said Sean Braisted, a district spokesperson. “As soon as the school was notified, staff and a school resource officer responded quickly and located the student at a park near his home. The school and transportation teams are reviewing the incident and reinforcing dismissal protocols to help ensure this does not happen again.”

Braisted clarified that as part of MNPS’s onboarding process, all kindergarten students zoned for school bus service receive a transportation tag. In this case, a teacher mistakenly attached a bus tag to Brinson’s backpack, which led to him being placed on a school bus despite the family’s plan for him to be picked up.

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Related: California Student Left Alone in Hot School Bus
Related: Georgia Woman Outraged After Daughter Kicked Off School Bus During Rainstorm
Related: Ohio Parents Sue School District After 6-Year-Old Left on Bus for Hours
Related: 6-Year-Old Left on School Bus for Hours

The post Tennessee Kindergartner Found Safe After School Bus Mix-Up appeared first on School Transportation News.

A teacher and students in a classroom. (Photo by Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images)

I recently read over my son’s last report card and was overwhelmed with pride.

It showed how far he’s come — progress that, not long ago, felt out of reach. I made mental notes of the areas where we still need to do some work, but mostly I just sat with the joy of seeing comments like “participates well in class” and “a pleasure to have in class.”

A few years ago, those kinds of remarks seemed impossible.

My son is on the autism spectrum. He’s bright, curious, and kind, but he faces challenges in areas that come more naturally to his peers — things like socializing, staying focused, and following multi-step directions.

To support his growth, our family relies on services in Milwaukee made accessible through Medicaid. Without it, we couldn’t afford the therapies and supports that have made such a profound difference in his life.

One of the most transformative resources we’ve accessed through Medicaid is applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy. Before my son began this program, he had a hard time sitting still, struggled with completing even small tasks, and rarely interacted meaningfully with others. The world often overwhelmed him, and those feelings showed up as frustration or withdrawal.

Our family was doing everything we could to support him, but we needed help. Medicaid made that possible.

The ABA therapy was intensive and, at times, exhausting — but it worked. Over time, we watched our son develop new skills, regulate his emotions, and engage with the world in a completely new way.

By the time the program ended, we had a different child. Not in that he changed who he was — but because he could finally show the world the amazing person he had always been. He could carry on a conversation, initiate play with peers, connect with adults, and begin building friendships.

Today, thanks to Medicaid, he continues to receive occupational therapy and speech therapy at school. These services help him strengthen motor skills, improve communication, and better navigate daily life. He also receives support through his Individualized Education Plan (IEP), ensuring he has the accommodations he needs to succeed. Because of this, my son is not just surviving — he is thriving.

But now, all of this is under threat.

Millions of families like mine could lose Medicaid because the Trump-GOP budget — the so-called “One Big Beautiful Act” — strips away the very support that children like my son depend on, all to finance tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. It’s hard to describe the fear that takes hold when you realize that your child’s future has been jeopardized with the stroke of a pen.

Some 37 million children — roughly half of kids in the United States — rely on Medicaid for health care, therapies, and other essential services. For kids with disabilities, Medicaid is often the only option for accessing the support they need. Without it, families face impossible choices — foregoing therapies, draining savings, or going without care altogether.

What’s even more heartbreaking is the callousness with which some elected officials treat this issue. Watching Republican Senators dance to a disco song as they celebrated the passage of this harmful bill made me physically ill. While they partied, families across the country worried about how to care for their children, afford therapy, or keep a roof over their heads.

This isn’t political for me — it’s personal. My child is not a budget line item. He is a human being who deserves the chance to live a full and meaningful life. Every child does.

Medicaid has been a lifeline for us, and it should be protected, not gutted. No parent should have to fight this hard for basic support, and no child should have their future jeopardized by politics.

The promise of America is an opportunity for all. That promise cannot be fulfilled if we dismantle the very systems that allow families like mine to survive — let alone thrive — simply to cut taxes for the wealthy.

We need to do better. We must do better.

Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions pressed President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccine recommendations Wednesday after the Health and Human Services secretary fired members of a critical vaccine panel this month.

Trump’s pick, former acting CDC Director Susan Monarez, said that she trusted vaccines while defending HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this month — widely seen as part of a vaccine-skeptical agenda — to fire all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, and recommend eight new members.

“Part of the secretary’s vision in restoring public trust is making sure that the American people can be confident in the way the evidence and science is driving decision-making,” she told senators.

The panel’s seven members — one dropped out this week — will meet Wednesday and Thursday to review data and vote on new vaccine recommendations. The recommendations carry significant weight as insurance providers and federal health programs like Medicaid use them to determine if shots are covered and schools rely on them for immunization mandates.

Cassidy questions

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the committee, said he was concerned about ACIP, especially as a non-CDC staff member is scheduled to give a presentation to the committee about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. The panel is expected to vote on approving flu shots that contain the compound.

Lyn Redwood, the former head of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group that Kennedy founded, is giving the presentation arguing that thimerosal causes autism. The CDC’s own research shows that thimerosal does not cause autism. 

Cassidy said that while Monarez had no part in this week’s ACIP meeting, or the agenda, he said that “if the ACIP hearing today is being used to sow distrust, I would ask that going forward, that you would make sure that there really was a balanced perspective.”

“Yes, someone can speak as a critic, but there should be someone who is reviewing the overwhelming evidence of the safety of vaccines,” Cassidy, who is a physician, said.

Monarez, who was the agency’s acting director from January to March, said that she trusted vaccines and that immunization was important to save lives.

If Monarez is confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first director of the CDC without a medical degree in nearly 70 years. She has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology.

More concerns about vaccine panel

Cassidy was not the only Republican on the panel concerned about the firing of all the members of ACIP.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was concerned about the backgrounds of the seven new panelists.

“I would hope that one of the things that you would all be looking into is to make sure that these individuals are going to be looking at the science in front of them, (and) leave their political bias at home,” Murkowski said.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington state and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland also pressed Monarez about Kennedy’s actions to fire everyone on the panel.

Murray asked Monarez if the new members of the panel voted to not recommend vaccines, if she would listen to that recommendation.

Monarez sidestepped the question and said the roles at ACIP were difficult to fill and that members needed to pass an ethics process.

“If they have not gone through an ethics approval process they shouldn’t be participating in the meetings,” she said.

Alsobrooks asked Monarez if she believed the 17 members fired from ACIP lacked qualifications.

Monarez did not answer the question, but said Kennedy’s reasoning for “resetting the ACIP to a new cohort was going to be on the path of restoring public trust.”

Grant funding and layoffs

Senators also raised concerns about grants that had been canceled, even though Congress already approved the funds.

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said that her state is suffering from a high level of Lyme disease and as a result a vaccine was in the works at a research institute in Maine.

“This vaccine is very promising and I want to make sure that it is allowed to continue to its conclusion,” Collins said.

Monarez agreed and said if she is confirmed, she will specifically work to make sure funding for that vaccine continues.

“It’s ironic that our dogs can get a vaccine to protect them against tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease but we humans can’t and I hope we can remedy that,” Collins said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, pressed Monarez about the elimination of the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC. He asked if she was involved in laying off all the staff in April, the month after her brief stint as acting director ended.

“I had no participation in (the layoffs) after I left,” she said.

Fluoride in water

Alsobrooks pressed Monarez about Kennedy’s push to have the CDC stop recommending that low levels of fluoride be placed in public drinking water.

Fluoride is added in drinking water to help prevent cavities, tooth decay and other dental health issues.

Alsobrooks asked Monarez, who is her constituent, if the public water supply that contains fluoride in Potomac, Maryland, where Monarez lives, was safe to drink.

“I believe the water in Potomac, Maryland, is safe,” Monarez said.