Correcting this week’s misinformation: week of November 12, 2026

Aaron Siri, an anti-vaccine lawyer, is again talking about a freedom-of-information request he made to the CDC. He claims that they couldn’t tell him which studies show that vaccines do not cause autism.

• FOIA requests cover agency records, not every published study.
• Missing records do not mean vaccine safety evidence is missing.
• Research links autism mainly to genetics and early brain development, not vaccines.

Our friend, law professor Dorit Reiss, explains that this lawsuit confused published research with government records. The Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lets people request records from federal agencies. But agencies do not have to keep a copy of every published study.

Scientists publish studies in journals so others can read and learn from them. Government records are documents that an agency keeps in its files. A study can be both, but an agency does not have to keep every published study.

Reiss also explains that FOIA lets people ask for government records. It requires agencies to search for their own records. It does not require them to gather every study that could answer a science question.

This is important because a missing document is not the same as missing evidence. If a study is not found in an agency’s files, it may still be published and available elsewhere. A records request tells us what documents an agency has on file. It does not tell us whether a scientific finding is true. Not receiving certain studies through this request does not show that vaccines cause autism or that evidence about their safety is missing.

Studies show that autism is mostly caused by genetics and starts very early, even before a baby is born. The brain differences seen in people with autism begin during early development in the womb, not because of vaccines or anything that happens later.

Falsely linking vaccines to autism can harm autistic people. It can lead to fake or dangerous treatments and unfair treatment because of their neurospiciness. Autistic children deserve protection from serious diseases through vaccination, just like other children.

An old video with RFK Jr. has him talking about aluminum adjuvants in vaccines causing allergies in children.

• One paper suggests a theory but does not prove vaccines cause food allergies.
• A review of over 190 studies found no link.
• Allergies appearing after vaccination do not mean vaccines caused them.

The paper this claim is based on is from SSRN, a website where researchers can share papers early,  before experts review them. A full version is also available in the Journal of Developing Drugs. The paper suggests ways vaccines might cause food allergies, but it does not show that they actually do.

A large research review in JAMA Pediatrics combined results from more than 190 studies involving over 2 million people. Researchers looked at more than 300 possible risk factors: things that might raise a person’s chance of developing food allergies. They found no link between vaccines and food allergies.

As Dr. Navard-Keck at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia explains, food allergies often appear during the same years that children get vaccines. This timing can make the two seem connected. But an allergy that appears after a vaccine was not necessarily caused by it.

Peter McCullough’s group is now saying they have proof that COVID vaccines have killed more people than World War I and World War II.

• This study compares recipients of Pfizer and Moderna without an unvaccinated group.
• Deaths after vaccination do not prove vaccines caused them.
• A large French study found fewer COVID deaths and no higher overall death risk among vaccinated adults.

McCullough’s staff claims things about this study that it does not claim.

The study compares death rates among people who received Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccines. It looks at all-cause mortality, which means deaths from any cause, including illness, accidents, and old age. Counting these deaths does not tell us whether a vaccine caused them.

The study does not include a group of unvaccinated people for comparison. That means it cannot tell us whether either vaccinated group had a higher or lower death rate than people who were not vaccinated.

Other research has made that comparison. A large study in France followed about 28 million adults ages 18 to 59. Vaccinated adults had a lower risk of dying from severe COVID and no higher risk of death overall during follow-up.

The comparison described in the video does not show that vaccines killed millions of people. A difference between the Pfizer and Moderna groups could have several causes, including differences in protection against COVID, age, or health. The comparison alone cannot tell us why their death rates differed.