Warning about bogus autism treatments vanishes from FDA’s website

For years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintained a crucial webpage aimed at educating parents about the risks associated with fraudulent autism treatments. This page highlighted various scams, many endorsed by anti-vaccine advocates and wellness companies, and detailed the significant health risks linked to these false claims. However, under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has numerous connections to the wellness industry, this important resource has been quietly removed. The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that the page, titled "Be Aware of Potentially Dangerous Products and Therapies that Claim to Treat Autism," was deleted at the end of last year. The now-defunct webpage offered a comprehensive overview of autism, discussing evidence-based therapies, including FDA-approved medications that help manage symptoms. It also enumerated various unproven treatments the FDA had been actively trying to combat, warning that "some of these so-called therapies carry significant health risks." Among the treatments listed were chelation therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy—methods often promoted by those in the anti-vaccine and wellness communities. While chelation is a legitimate treatment for heavy metal poisoning, it has been misappropriated by advocates who falsely assert it can treat autism. The FDA emphasized that real chelation products require a prescription, as improperly removing minerals from the body can lead to serious health complications. Anti-vaccine activists have long propagated the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, with a particular focus on thimerosal, a vaccine preservative containing ethylmercury. Following widespread concern, thimerosal was mostly eliminated from childhood vaccines by 2001, yet autism rates remained unchanged. Ongoing research has consistently demonstrated that thimerosal is safe and not linked to autism. These activists have since redirected their claims toward other vaccine components, such as aluminum, which is used to enhance immune responses in some vaccines. Like thimerosal, aluminum has been proven safe and is not associated with autism, yet misinformation continues to circulate among certain groups.