HHS abruptly cancels CDC meeting with RFK Jr., anti-vaccine activist as scrutiny mounts
Hired to seek a link to autism, David Geier wants expanded access to a vaccine safety database
"A meeting of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., anti-vaccine campaigner David Geier, and leaders of the country’s most robust vaccine safety database was abruptly canceled Wednesday, just hours before they were likely to discuss using the database to investigate whether there is a link between autism and the national childhood vaccine schedule, according to a person who had been invited to attend.
Decades of research has shown that vaccines do not cause autism. Nevertheless, Kennedy hired Geier to reanalyze data that he and his father worked with in the early 2000s to try to find such a link. The duo quickly lost access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink in 2004 after managers of the database learned they were pursuing a research question different from what they had proposed and had been approved.
The meeting with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials overseeing the VSD was intended to discuss granting Geier access to more recent vaccine safety data than he previously had analyzed, the VSD official told STAT. The official asked to remain anonymous due to fears that they could lose their job.
It is unclear why the Department of Health and Human Services canceled the meeting, but it coincided with testimony before a congressional committee by ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez, who said Kennedy planned to change the vaccine schedule this month. During the same hearing, former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry testified that an HHS official pleaded with her for two days to grant Geier access to VSD data, though she did not specify the official’s name or the data in question."
https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/17/rfk-vaccines-autism-key-data-safety-meeting-canceled/