The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $362,493 contract to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to investigate any links between vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder.
The definitive contract, awarded Tuesday just before the government shutdown, tasks the New York research university with an “investigation of the association between vaccinations and autism prevalence,” as the award description reads.
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RPI is expected to place Dr. Juergen Hahn at the helm of the research study team, according to multiple reports. Hahn says his research focus emphasizes “data science approaches applied to autism spectrum disorder” in his faculty biography. He is the director of RPI’s Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies.
The contract award comes just one week after President Donald Trump and his top health advisers, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., advised against pregnant women taking Tylenol, linking usage during pregnancy to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD.
TRUMP TAKES AIM AT CHILDHOOD VACCINES IN PRESS EVENT ON TYLENOL AND AUTISM
Trump criticized vaccinations during the press conference on Tylenol with Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic himself. Though Trump did not say that vaccines cause autism during the press conference, he said autism must be “artificially induced” while also railing against vaccines like the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, one that some vaccine skeptics have argued could be linked to autism.
The CDC issued a notice of intent regarding the RPI contract on Sept. 11, pointing to the institute’s specific ability to produce “advanced statistical analyses” before the contract’s end date of Sept. 29, 2026.
“The vendor has unique ability to link children to maternal cohorts using proprietary databases and de-identified data sets, enabling advanced statistical analyses within the project’s timeframe,” the CDC wrote in its NOI.
Hahn has authored several recent publications on autism, including a 2023 study in the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering titled “Towards the development of a diagnostic test for autism spectrum disorder: Big data meets metabolomics.”
“Professor Juergen Hahn is a biomedical engineer and data science expert who has conducted extensive research focused on autism risk factors. He is renowned for the quality and rigor of his research,” a spokesperson for RPI told several news outlets after the NOI. “If this project is awarded, he intends to publish the results of his work at the conclusion of the project.”
RPI, Hahn, and the CDC did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.
RFK JR. INVESTIGATIVE AGENDA RAISES NEW ETHICAL QUESTIONS FOR AUTISM ADVOCATES
“For too long, families have been left without answers or options as autism rates have soared,” Kennedy said in a September statement.
Autism has been a central focus for Kennedy throughout his career and during his time as HHS secretary. In an April press conference announcing that autism prevalence had risen from 1 in 150 children in 2003 to 1 in 31 children, Kennedy said autism is a “preventable disease.”