An analysis of federal health survey data found higher reported odds of autism, ADHD, anxiety and several other outcomes among children who had received COVID-19 vaccines, but the study’s cross-sectional design cannot determine whether vaccination preceded the diagnoses or caused them.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
A newly released analysis of nearly 22,000 U.S. children has identified statistical associations between COVID-19 vaccination and several reported neurodevelopmental and mental-health conditions, prompting its authors to call for more extensive investigation while leaving unresolved the central question of whether vaccination played any causal role.
The study, titled “Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in COVID-19-Vaccinated Versus Unvaccinated U.S. Children: Analysis of the National Health Interview Survey, 2022–2024,” was posted Oct. 5 as a preprint on Zenodo. It has not undergone peer review.
Researchers led by Nicolas Hulscher of the McCullough Foundation analyzed National Health Interview Survey data from 21,990 children ages 0 to 17 whose COVID-19 vaccination status was available. For autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning-disability analyses, the sample included 19,882 children ages 2 to 17.
The investigators reported higher adjusted odds of several conditions among children whose parents said they had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine compared with children reported as never having received one.
Hulscher, discussing the findings in a report by The Gateway Pundit, said, “We analyzed official U.S. government data from 21,990 children and found a consistent association between childhood COVID-19 vaccination and higher odds of autism ADHD, anxiety, special-education use, and mental health treatment.”
The study calculated adjusted odds ratios of 1.32 for current autism, 1.33 for ADHD, 1.23 for any neurodevelopmental diagnosis, 1.19 for use of special-education services, 1.24 for asthma and 1.27 for daily or weekly anxiety.
It also found adjusted odds ratios of 1.57 for use of mental-health medication and 1.60 for mental-health therapy.
Those figures represent differences in odds between the groups after statistical adjustment. They should not be interpreted as demonstrating that autism diagnoses themselves increased by 32%, ADHD diagnoses increased by 33% or vaccination caused those outcomes.
The researchers performed several additional analyses intended to determine whether the associations persisted after accounting for measurable differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
For current autism, adjusted odds rose with the reported number of COVID-19 doses, from an odds ratio of 1.03 after one dose to 1.25 after two doses and 1.40 after three or more doses compared with children who had received none.
A particularly large estimate appeared among children ages 5 to 7 who had reportedly received three or more doses. In that subgroup, the adjusted odds ratio for current autism was 2.54, although the confidence interval was wide, ranging from 1.33 to 4.84, reflecting substantial statistical uncertainty.
“The autism association persisted across numerous adjustment strategies, strengthened with increasing dose count, and reached its largest estimate in some of the youngest multiply vaccinated children,” Hulscher said. “Among ages five to seven, three or more COVID shots were associated with 154 percent higher adjusted odds of current autism.”
The paper also examined children believed to have received their first COVID-19 vaccination at age 5 or younger and at least a year before the survey interview. Researchers calculated an adjusted autism odds ratio of 2.46 in that analysis, but it was based on only nine exposed autism cases, another limitation that makes the estimate imprecise.
The authors used propensity-score weighting and other adjustment strategies in an attempt to reduce differences between groups. They reported that the autism association remained after those statistical procedures.
They also compared COVID-19 vaccination with influenza and HPV vaccination in an effort to assess whether the observed pattern might simply reflect differences between families who vaccinate and those who do not.
The results were not uniform. In some comparisons, children receiving COVID-19 vaccines had higher autism odds than those receiving influenza vaccines alone. In others, estimates for COVID-only and influenza-only vaccination were similar and modest. HPV vaccination also produced an elevated autism point estimate, although its confidence interval included no association.
The paper itself acknowledges a fundamental limitation that statistical adjustment cannot resolve: The underlying National Health Interview Survey is cross-sectional.
That means vaccination history and diagnoses were collected during the same survey process rather than following children prospectively from before vaccination through subsequent years.
As a result, researchers cannot reliably determine from these data whether a child’s autism, ADHD, anxiety or other condition began before or after the COVID-19 vaccination.
The study’s authors explicitly acknowledge that problem.
“In a direct comparison of COVID-19-vaccinated with unvaccinated children in a nationally representative U.S. sample, COVID-19 vaccination was associated with higher adjusted odds of autism, ADHD, anxiety, special-education use, and mental-health treatment,” the paper states. “The autism association persisted across every adjustment tier; was unchanged under propensity-score balancing that removed all measured covariate imbalance and nullified the acute-care negative controls; was robust to restriction to physically healthy children; increased monotonically with dose count; was largest in the youngest exposed cohorts, including children vaccinated before the school-entry diagnostic window; and exceeded that of influenza vaccination in direct comparison. These properties satisfy the strength, consistency, biological gradient, plausibility, and coherence considerations for causal inference, and no measured confounder explains them.”
The authors then identify what the analysis cannot establish.
“Because the cross-sectional design cannot order exposure and diagnosis, a global scheduled combination childhood vaccine effect on neurodevelopment cannot be evaluated,” the paper states. “A linked birth-cohort study of toddlers before age 3 capturing co-administered vaccines, incident diagnoses, and pre-specified negative controls would be the next step in evaluating this concerning association.”
That limitation is particularly consequential for autism and ADHD because both conditions originate during neurodevelopment, while diagnosis can occur years after symptoms first emerge.
Children with developmental or behavioral conditions can also differ from other children in healthcare use, medical follow-up, age distribution and family characteristics. Statistical models can adjust for factors researchers measured, but they cannot eliminate unknown or unmeasured confounding.
Vaccination status and medical conditions in the survey were also largely based on parental reporting rather than a study design linking individual vaccination records with dates of new clinical diagnoses.
The study therefore cannot establish that children developed autism, ADHD or other disorders after vaccination, much less demonstrate that vaccination caused them. A stronger test of that hypothesis would require longitudinal data establishing the timing of vaccination and onset of new diagnoses, ideally with independently replicated analyses and prespecified methods.
Hulscher nevertheless argued that the associations were serious enough to justify immediate action.
“This is a safety signal that must not be ignored,” he told The Gateway Pundit. “Endangering the developing brain is a red line. COVID-19 ‘vaccination’ of children should cease immediately.”
The Gateway Pundit similarly said the results should prompt scrutiny.
“As parents and healthcare providers weigh the benefits and risks of vaccination, it is essential to approach this data with concern and a commitment to prioritizing the well-being of the nation’s youth,” the publication stated. “Ensuring the safety and well-being of children should remain the top priority, prompting immediate reassessment of vaccination strategies and policies to safeguard their developmental health.”
The findings arrive amid continuing controversy over COVID-19 vaccine safety and the policies surrounding their use during the pandemic.
One risk has been firmly established: myocarditis and pericarditis can occur after COVID-19 vaccination, particularly after mRNA vaccines in adolescent and young adult males. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes those cases as rare and says they have occurred most frequently within seven days of vaccination in adolescent and young adult males.
The existence of that recognized adverse event, however, does not establish that the vaccines cause autism, ADHD or the other developmental conditions examined in the new preprint. Those are separate scientific questions requiring evidence specific to each outcome.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has been among the political figures arguing that the technology presents broader biological risks.
“The mRNA COVID-19 injection is not a vaccine; it is gene therapy injection,” Johnson wrote in a post circulated through this link and published on X on Oct. 2.
“Pfizer and regulators knew that it would bio-distribute all over the body, instructing cells to produce the toxic spike protein and causing inflammation.
“Gee, what could go wrong…”
Federal regulators classify the mRNA products as vaccines rather than gene therapies. The FDA defines human gene therapy as treatment intended to modify or manipulate gene expression or alter the biological properties of cells for therapeutic purposes, while mRNA COVID-19 vaccines temporarily deliver instructions for cells to produce an antigen that stimulates an immune response. The mRNA does not need to enter the cell nucleus or alter a recipient’s DNA to perform that function.
Separate legal scrutiny of vaccine manufacturers is also continuing.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit Oct. 1 against Pfizer and CEO Albert Bourla alleging the company deceptively marketed its COVID-19 vaccine and failed to adequately disclose safety concerns. The claims are allegations in a civil lawsuit and have not been established as findings of fact by a court. Pfizer has said the allegations lack merit and that its statements concerning the vaccine were accurate and science-based.
“Weeks ago we learned Fauci and the biomedical state knew the COVID jabs were dangerous but hid it from us,” Uthmeier wrote on X.
“While that investigation continues, today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe—making billions—while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks.”
The Florida case concerns alleged marketing practices and safety disclosures; it does not establish that COVID-19 vaccination causes autism or the other outcomes reported in the new analysis.
The new paper therefore raises a testable research question rather than settling one.
Its authors found associations in a large, nationally representative federal survey, including patterns that persisted under several statistical approaches and appeared stronger with additional doses in some analyses. At the same time, the research cannot establish whether the diagnoses occurred before or after vaccination, relies on observational survey data, contains small numbers in some of its most striking subgroup findings and has not yet undergone peer review.
Determining whether the signal reflects a vaccine effect, differences between the populations being compared, reverse timing of diagnosis and vaccination or another explanation will require prospective or linked longitudinal research capable of establishing when exposure occurred and when each condition first developed.
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