US autism advisory board will not meet in March as scheduled, health agency says

By Leah Douglas

WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) – A U.S. autism advisory board will not hold a scheduled meeting in March, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Saturday. 

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee makes recommendations to the health secretary on federal autism research spending and coordinates federal autism efforts. The group was scheduled to meet on March 19. 

“The IACC will not meet later this month,” said HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon, without sharing additional details of the cancellation or a new meeting date. “Further information will be shared as available.”

The panel was remade in January by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has suggested vaccines cause autism. 

More than a third of the new committee members have promoted the debunked link between vaccines and autism. Some new members have said they aim to steer federal dollars toward investigating causes of autism as well as other issues ​like co-occurring medical disorders. 

Last week, a dozen autism advocates, researchers and several former committee members formed the Independent Autism Coordination Committee to create its own strategic plan for autism ⁠research as a counter to the Kennedy-appointed group.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non and Tomasz Janowski)