For several months now, the current U.S. administration has consistently attacked and endeavored to weaken biomedical research and public health action in the United States and worldwide with unparalleled vigor. This situation has many consequences – both ethical and economic – but above all it is a grave attack on healthcare protection, and an unprecedented assault on the systems and institutions responsible for protecting lives.
Certain key scientific topics in infectious diseases, immunology, vaccinology and women's health have been deprioritized as research projects eligible for federal funding. In addition, the United States has abruptly withdrawn from major global public health programs, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and just recently moving ahead with its decision to exit the World Health Organization (WHO). The general scale of the threats now facing these activities is huge, and the implications for public health are likely to be considerable. According to The Lancet [1], the end of USAID could result in the loss of 14.1 million lives by 2030, including 4.5 million children under the age of 5. This is not only a grave injustice for the populations directly affected, but it demonstrates a broader lack of understanding of how populations are nowadays interconnected, where lack of disease control in certain affected areas can easily result in previously controlled or new infections spreading across the globe.
In the same vein, the U.S. administration has undertaken an overhaul of its vaccine policy, radically challenging the scientific consensus in this major public health field and jeopardizing the health of millions of people, often including children, in the United States and beyond. Vaccines are among the safest and most effective public health interventions. Globally, around half of the decline in child mortality can be attributed to vaccination. As a result of 50 years of vaccination, a child born today has a 40% increased chance of survival for every year of infancy and childhood.[2]
Due to political pressure, certain U.S. government agencies, whose very mission is to protect the public’s health, publish messages that are not backed with scientific data. As of November 19, 2025, the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the primary U.S. federal agency for public health protection, states that ‘‘the claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism’’. This confusing statement is factually incorrect. The Institut Pasteur wishes to clarify and reaffirm that reproducible and validated scientific studies have found no evidence of a link between infant vaccination and autism. On the contrary, they conclude that vaccines are not associated with autism [3][4]. The cause of autism is still an open and active research field, although serious scientific studies, including some conducted at the Institut Pasteur, have now identified genetic causes in many people with autism [5]. The CDC’s statement thus contradicts the scientific consensus, which was reached by widely recognized experts following decades of rigorous scientific analysis, thereby sowing the seeds of doubt and perpetuating disinformation.
As of January 5, 2026, the U.S. authorities are no longer recommending universal immunization of children with essential vaccines, including those against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, influenza and rotavirus. This decision contradicts the conclusions of most public health studies conducted on this topic. It deprives very young children of crucial protection against these potentially severe diseases for their own and their family’s health. In the case of hepatitis A, universal two-dose programs have reported efficacy of 95% or more between 3 and 5 years after administration [6], and it is acknowledged that the recommendations of the American Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for universal immunization of children aged 12 to 23 months against hepatitis A led to a 95.5% reduction in hepatitis A cases between 1996 and 2011 in the United States [7]. Studies conducted in the Western Pacific region have shown that vaccination against hepatitis B prevented 37 million cases of chronic infection in children born between 1990 and 2014, thereby averting 7 million deaths in this population [8]. Lastly, meningococcal vaccines are still the most effective strategy for preventing invasive meningococcal infections, which are extremely serious diseases that within hours may be fatal or cause lifelong complications. The risk of invasive meningococcal infections cannot be considered negligible in the United States, with the emergence and spread of meningococcal strains with growing resistance to first-line antibiotics, and the resurgence in invasive bacterial infections following the COVID-19 pandemic. Lower vaccination coverage in the United States could increase vulnerability to imported strains and, conversely, facilitate the export of cases to other countries. These developments have been documented recently, particularly in connection with travel to the Middle East. These concerns are further amplified by the fact that the United States is soon to co-host the FIFA World Cup, a mass gathering event [9].
The latest series of decisions by the U.S. administration is extremely dangerous for at least three reasons. First, it misleads the public. By spreading false information and disregarding decades of progress in public health, the U.S. administration may discourage many parents from having their children vaccinated, even though this is a public health measure that has saved hundreds of millions of lives. Second, it signals the pre-eminence of ideological considerations over scientific consensus, in disregard for human life and health. Last, by creating confusion between established scientific facts and unfounded, mostly individual, opinions, the U.S. administration's rhetoric would have us believe that a consensus of the international scientific community, based on rigorous and confirmed studies, carries the same weight as an unfounded opinion. By implying that the arduous process put in place to validate scientific data, based on cross-validation, methodological rigor and critical examination, has the same value as an anecdote, this situation contributes to the destruction of the intellectual and ethical milestones underpinning the very principles of progress, human protection and our democracies.
Against this backdrop of increasing attacks on scientific truth and public health, the Institut Pasteur reaffirms its determination to combat all forms of disinformation by pursuing its scientific research, reiterating established facts and demonstrating the virtues of rationality.
Sources
[1] Beyrer, Chris, Legitimate expectations and the abrupt cessation of US aid: a human rights issue?, The Lancet, Volume 407, Issue 10523[1]
[2] Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization, Shattock, Andrew J et al, The Lancet, Volume 403, Issue 10441, 2307 – 2316
[3] Luke E. Taylor, Amy L. Swerdfeger, Guy D. Eslick, Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies, Vaccine, Volume 32, Issue 29, 2014, Pages 3623-3629, ISSN 0264-410X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085
[4] Anders Hviid, Jørgen Vinsløv Hansen, Morten Frisch, Mads Melbye, Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study, Annals of Internal Medicine, Volume 170, Number 8, 16 April 2019, Pages: 513 – 520, https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-2101
[5] Leblond CS, Rolland T, Barthome E, Mougin Z, Fleury M, Ecker C, Bonnot-Briey S, Cliquet F, Tabet AC, Maruani A, Chaumette B, Green J, Delorme R, Bourgeron T. A genetic bridge for autism between medicine and neurodiversity. Annual Review of Genetics. 2024 Nov;58(1):487-512
[6] Andani, A., van Damme, P., Bunge, E. M., Salgado, F., van Hoorn, R. C., & Hoet, B. (2022). One or two doses of hepatitis A vaccine in universal vaccination programs in children in 2020: A systematic review. Vaccine, 40(2), 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.01.038
[7] Nelson, N. P., Weng, M. K., Hofmeister, M. G., Moore, K. L., Doshani, M., Kamili, S., Koneru, A., Haber, P., Hagan, L., Romero, J. R., Schillie, S., & Harris, A. M. (2020). Prevention of Hepatitis A Virus Infection in the United States: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, 2020. MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports, 69(5), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.rr6905a1
[8] Jeng, W. J., Papatheodoridis, G. V., & Lok, A. S. F. (2023). Hepatitis B. Lancet (London, England), 401(10381), 1039–1052. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01468-4
Chang, M. H., You, S. L., Chen, C. J., Liu, C. J., Lai, M. W., Wu, T. C., Wu, S. F., Lee, C. M., Yang, S. S., Chu, H. C., Wang, T. E., Chen, B. W., Chuang, W. L., Soon, M. S., Lin, C. Y., Chiou, S. T., Kuo, H. S., Chen, D. S., & Taiwan Hepatoma Study Group (2016). Long-term Effects of Hepatitis B Immunization of Infants in Preventing Liver Cancer. Gastroenterology, 151(3), 472–480.e1. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2016.05.048
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