RFK Jr. Says CDC Ordered Scientist to DESTROY Autism Data Linking Measles Vaccine to Black Children in 2002

During a stunning Senate hearing, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that in the early 2000s, a senior CDC scientist was ordered to destroy data from an internal study that showed a staggering link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism risk in young Black boys.

In 2004, a CDC-backed case-control study in Atlanta compared 624 children with autism to 1,824 without, assessing whether timing of MMR vaccination (before vs. after 18 or 24 months) was linked to autism risk. It found no significant association.

While the 2004 study did not find a causal link, a later re-analysis of the same data received significant attention.

A 2014 study published in Translational Neurodegeneration re-examined the CDC’s dataset and claimed to find an increased autism risk among African American boys who received the MMR vaccine before 36 months of age.

According to the 2014 study, “The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis.”

According to RFK Jr., the findings were explosive:

“The data from that study showed that black boys who got the vaccine on time had a 260% greater chance of getting an autism diagnosis than children who waited,” Kennedy testified.

“The chief scientist on that, Dr. William Thompson, the Senior Vaccine Safety Scientist at CDC, was ordered to come into a room with four other co-authors by his boss, Frank DeStefano, who’s the head of the safety press, and ordered to destroy that data. Then they published it without that fact.”

WATCH:

JUST NOW: RFK Jr. reveals that in 2002 a Chief Scientist at CDC was brought into a room and ordered to destroy data from a study showing that Black boys who got the MMR vaccine on time vs those who waited had a 260% higher chance of being diagnosed with autism. pic.twitter.com/uVNiI1wQXU

— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) September 4, 2025