Fact-check: “Vaccines cause autism”
Verdict: False (95% confidence)
Decades of large-scale epidemiological studies and meta-analyses have found no causal link between vaccines and autism spectrum disorder. The claim originated primarily from a 1998 Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield that was subsequently retracted after investigators found the data had been manipulated; the paper has been described in the British Medical Journal as an 'elaborate fraud.' A recent 2025-2026 CDC website update revised language about whether certain infant vaccines 'do not cause auti…
This fact-check was conducted by SpinkillerAI, a non-partisan AI-powered accountability platform.
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