Here's the brief summary of what happened:
Last summer, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the CDC to provide all of the studies supporting its claim that "vaccines do not cause autism." Specifically, ICAN asked the CDC to produce all of the studies that demonstrated that the vaccines given in the first six months of life did not cause autism.
These vaccines are: DTap, HIB, HepB, Prevnar (PCV13), and the Polio vaccine (IPV).
ICAN also requested that the CDC "provide studies to support the cumulative exposure to these vaccines during the first six months of life do not cause autism."
According to ICAN, the CDC failed to produce a single study after months of follow-up requests. ICAN then sued the CDC in federal court, and the CDC finally produced its studies. All 20 of them.
Here's how they break down:
One of the studies looked only at the MMR vaccine. The MMR vaccine was not on the list of vaccines about which ICAN had requested studies.
Thirteen of the studies looked at Thimerosal. According to ICAN, Thimerosal is not included in ANY of the vaccines about which they requested studies.
Four of the studies looked at the MMR vaccine AND Thimerosal. Again, neither of which had anything to do with the vaccines ICAN was asking about.
Only two of the studies even addressed any of the vaccines ICAN had asked about.
The first of these two was actually a review, produced by the Institute of Medicine, titled "Adverse Effects of Vaccines, Evidence and Causality." It looked at the DTaP vaccine, among others, and concluded:
"The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between diptheria toxoid-, tetanus toxoid-, or acellular pertussis-containing vaccine and autism."
The second of these two studies looked only at the antigen load of vaccines, looking to see whether exposure to more antigens was associated with a higher rate of autism. It did not look at adjuvants, for example (something that–unlike antigens–critics of vaccine safety claims are actually worried about), or the receipt of vaccines themselves, but only at the receipt of antigens. The study found no increase in autism associated with an increase in antigens received.
The study concludes that:
"It can be argued that ASD with regression, in which children usually lose developmental skills during the second year of life, could be related to exposures in infancy, including vaccines; however, we found no association between exposure to antigens from vaccines during infancy and the development of ASD with regression."
In summary, NONE of the studies the CDC provided in response to ICAN's question were able to demonstrate that any of the vaccines in question do not cause autism.
ICAN's Del Bigtree sums it up:
"So when the CDC was tasked with providing all of the science that proves that the vaccines in the first six months of life do not cause autism, they were able to provide ZERO studies that actually addressed our question. That means that this statement, on the CDC website, 'vaccines do not cause autism', is not a statement of science. Rather, it's an advertising slogan.
"So here at the Informed Consent Action Network, we are speaking to you Alex Azar, and the heads of the CDC, and saying: It is time for you now to remove this, voluntarily, from your website."