‘You get a vaccine and that’s the trigger,’ one said during a conference.
Toby Rogers speaks in Washington on Sept. 9, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
New advisers to the government said during an event on March 9 that vaccines cause autism, a disorder that has become increasingly common in the United States.
“We have to stop 115,000 autism cases from happening every year. And the way that we stop that is by keeping toxic chemicals out of kids’ bodies,” Toby Rogers, one of the advisers, said. “That starts with getting rid of vaccine schedules altogether.
“But we also have to ban and better regulate about a dozen other toxic chemicals as well.”
Dr. Elizabeth Mumper, another adviser, added later that, depending on the situation, vaccines can set up the body for autism or trigger it.
“For some kids, I think a vaccine is an antecedent, meaning that it does something to the immune [system], so that the next time they see a trigger—it might be a bad flu infection, it might be another vaccine, it might be glyphosate, it might be moving close to an industrial pesticide farm—then that tips them over,” she said.
“Or maybe you’ve got predisposing factors that are antecedent, like C-section birth and early antibiotic use, and then you get a vaccine, and that’s the trigger.”
Rogers and Mumper were speaking at an event held in Washington by the MAHA Institute, which was started by a businessman who backed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid in 2024.
Kennedy in January named Rogers, Mumper, and others to a national autism committee that advises the government on autism-related work.
The committee was supposed to meet on March 19 for the first time since being remade by the health secretary, but officials recently said the meeting was postponed. A competing panel, started in part in response to concerns over the views of new committee members on vaccines, is still slated to convene on March 19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to say that vaccines do not cause autism, but now says that studies have not ruled out that possibility. The federal vaccine court has awarded money to parents whose children experienced symptoms of autism, such as brain swelling.
The National Medical Association, which accepts money from vaccine manufacturers, is among the organizations that say no credible evidence demonstrates that autism is caused by vaccines.
At the MAHA Institute event, dubbed the “massive epidemic of vaccine injury roundtable,” people spoke out against vaccines, some more forcefully than others. Mark Gorton, president of the group, at one point said that all shots must be removed from the market “until they can be proven to be both safe and effective.”
If that is not feasible in the current political environment, Gorton said, delaying vaccines until the age of 5 would be a good compromise.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with approval from Kennedy, earlier this year scaled back recommendations for some vaccines for children but did not remove any from the childhood schedule or the market. That change prompted lawsuits, which may result in courts blocking the update.
Rogers pointed to a 2018 paper that concluded children with autism experienced regression, or the loss of skills, at a certain time compared with being autistic since birth.
“What matters about regression is it suggests an acute toxic exposure,” Rogers said. “And what’s the most likely acute toxic exposure? A child well-baby visit. The vaccines that they get.”
Mumper later recalled how she went into private practice to try to address how she believed vaccines were hurting children. Her new approach included making vaccination optional and never administering more than two at a time. She said data from her practice were incorporated into a 2020 study that found unvaccinated children had lower rates of asthma and other issues.
Dr. Joel Warsh, a pediatrician who is not a government adviser, said that given studies of unvaccinated versus vaccinated children, and reports from parents of autism appearing shortly after vaccination, the percentage of autism cases caused by vaccines “is not zero percent.”
“So the question has to be how much and then why,” he said.
Warsh said that more research is needed and hopes a wider range of doctors begin to turn away from the stance that vaccines cannot cause injuries.
“If we don’t change that narrative, then, after Secretary Kennedy is gone, I’m worried that things are just going to go back to the way they were,” he said.