NEW YORK (AP) – Federal Health Officers are planning to grant a contract to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to investigate whether there is a connection between vaccinations and autism, according to a notification of government contracts.
De Troy, New York, Engineering School receives the no-bid contract because of the “unique capacity” to link data to children and mothers, according to the notification posted this week.
Officials of the Ministry of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to questions about the notification, including how much the contract is or what the researchers are planning to do.
The American health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading voice in the antivaccin movement before President Donald Trump selected him to supervise federal health authorities, announced a “massive test and research efforts” in April to determine the cause of autism by this month. He has repeatedly tried to link vaccines to the condition.
An RPI Biotech Engineering Professor, Juergen Hahn, has used artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to look for patterns in blood samples of children with autism. Hahn “is known for the quality and strictness of his research,” said RPI officials in a statement in which the intended subsidy was recognized.
“If this project is awarded, he intends to publish the results of his work at the end of the project,” the statement added.
The Associated Press left messages behind that comment from Hahn.
The notification raises many questions, said Alycia Halladay, who supervises research activities and subsidies for the Autism Science Foundation.
RPI is not known in the field as special access to data about these types of questions and “would not be the obvious choice,” said Halladay.
It is also not clear how the contract fits in other autism research that the government may intend, she said.
But perhaps the biggest question is why no money is spent on such a study at all, she added.
Scientists have excluded a connection between vaccines and autism, where they find no evidence of increased autism among those who have been vaccinated compared to those who are not.
“The question has been studied for 20 years, several times by researchers around the world who use millions of people, and a credible association has never been found between vaccines and autism,” Halladay said.
Those who have spent decades with investigating autism have not found any cause. Genetics play a role and other factors are the age of the father of a child, the weight of the mother and whether she had diabetes or was exposed to certain chemicals.
What amount is also spent on the project, instead instead could go to “other important research questions”, including studies on genetics and environmental factors, Halladay said.
“I think that's the most frustrating part,” she said.
For months, HHS officials have been trying to use the vaccine safety data compiled by the CDC to look for damage that may be bound by recordings. Kennedy has accused CDC leaders of stealing those efforts, but the actual obstacle has been something else, said a former federal health officer who is familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
About a dozen medical research organizations collect the vaccine safety data and report this to the CDC. Contracts that extend for almost two decades give those entities – not the CDC – control over the data, and HHS has not yet been able to get it, the official said.
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