CIDRAP's account of Robert Boehm and colleagues' Science study turns the CDC autism page from a culture-war text into an experimental exposure: 2,989 U.S. adults read either the old CDC language, the revised Kennedy-era language, or neither, and the revised version made vaccines seem riskier and lowered intent to receive recommended vaccination. [1]

Friday's paper said the CDC autism-vaccines page had made trust measurable; Saturday's update is that the health outcome is not autism, it is trust itself. The CDC page still says the claim that vaccines do not cause autism is "not an evidence-based claim" because studies have not ruled out every possibility, while WHO's vaccine-safety committee has reaffirmed no causal link. [2] [3]

That gap is the story. X fights over motive; the study measures the consequence of official language when parents are deciding whether the institution still deserves belief.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago