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The deadline for submitting comments on the federal government’s draft Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) Strategic Plan for Autism Research, Services and Policy is this Thursday, August 20.
The draft addresses numerous unanswered questions about autism, including potential environmental and medical factors. However, it does not explicitly identify vaccines or immunizations as research subjects when examining possible causes of autism.
The Strategic Plan should explicitly call for rigorous, transparent, independent research into the potential relationship between childhood vaccination and autism.
Please submit a comment urging the IACC to make this a top research priority.
TAKE ACTION
Submit your comment directly to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC):
https://iacc.hhs.gov/meetings/public-comments/contact.shtml?utm_
The public comment period ends August 20.
SAMPLE EMAIL
Dear Members of the IACC,
I urge you to explicitly include research into the potential relationship between vaccines and autism in the Strategic Plan for Autism Research, Services and Policy.
The CDC now states that the claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not evidence-based because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
The cumulative impact of the 90+ prenatal and childhood vaccine doses recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics should also be studied.
The Plan should call for independent, transparent research examining individual vaccines, combinations of vaccines, cumulative vaccine exposure, and vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations.
This research should not prejudge the outcome. The goal should be to answer an important and long-standing question through rigorous science and methods the public can trust.
Families deserve clear answers about the causes of autism. Please make vaccine-autism research an explicit priority in the Strategic Plan.
Sincerely,
[NAME]
TALKING POINTS
1. The draft discusses environmental factors and medical products, but broad language is not enough. If vaccine safety and a possible relationship to autism are important questions for the public, the Strategic Plan should explicitly identify them as research priorities.
2. Research should not be limited to one vaccine or one ingredient. Studies should examine individual vaccines, combinations of vaccines, timing of administration and cumulative exposure. To date, only one vaccine has been studied, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), and one ingredient: thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in multidose vials.
3. Research should include appropriately designed vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated comparisons capable of detecting differences in autism and other health outcomes.
6. Investigators should disclose financial and institutional conflicts of interest. Research intended to resolve a highly contentious public-health question must be designed to earn public trust.
7. Research should not rely solely on broad autism diagnoses. Studies should include adequate numbers of individuals across the autism spectrum, including people with profound or Level 3 autism, and examine meaningful differences in health outcomes.
8. Research should examine whether there are plausible biological pathways by which vaccination, vaccine components or the timing and combination of exposures could affect neurodevelopment.
9. Autism affects millions of American families, and major questions remain about its causes and biological mechanisms. HHS has stated that President Trump directed Secretary Kennedy to identify the root causes of autism and that the federal government is pursuing additional autism research. The IACC Strategic Plan should ensure that potentially important environmental and medical factors—including vaccines—are not omitted from the research agenda.
MORE INFORMATION
The draft Strategic Plan will guide federal autism research, services and policy priorities and will be considered by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.
The public comment period closes August 20, 2026, with the next IACC meeting scheduled for August 27, 2026.
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