By Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named an ally, Dr. John Gaitanis, to lead a key federal advisory panel on autism on Friday, replacing a chair who had just steered through a new strategic plan, a health department spokesperson told Reuters.
Gaitanis, a pediatric neurologist appointed last month as director of the National Institutes of Health’s child health institute, takes over from Dr. Sylvia Fogel, who has chaired the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee since January.
The appointment took effect on Friday, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said.
Fogel, a Harvard Medical School instructor and parent to an adult child with autism, had quickly proposed and helped adopt a new strategic plan focused on medical care, housing, aging, and other priorities for people with autism and their families.
The committee under her leadership recommended the government adopt the term “profound autism” for those with high support needs. She took over after Kennedy remade the board, filling it with all new members, some of whom have promoted ties between vaccines and autism.
KENNEDY WANTED FEDERAL CHAIR
Kennedy said during a meeting that Gaitanis would take over because the committee has traditionally been chaired by one of its 21 federal members, two people with knowledge of the meeting said. Fogel is one of the committee’s 20 outside public members.
He praised the committee’s work and Fogel specifically, the two people said, adding that she would help Gaitanis with the transition.
A federal chair would strengthen the committee’s focus on implementing its strategic plan and coordinating across agencies, Hilliard said, adding that Fogel would remain a member.
Fogel did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy also said the committee had not done its job in the past and apologized to the public members who felt frustrated by a perceived lack of support from federal members, the two people said.
The IACC under Fogel’s leadership recommended nearly doubling federal spending across the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies to address an array of issues affecting people with autism and their families.
“I think your recommendations have been excellent. I would have been even more aggressive if it was me there, but only slightly so,” Kennedy said at the meeting, according to one of the sources.
The committee provides non-binding guidance to the government on autism-related priorities. The new strategic plan did not mention vaccines or studying a link to autism.
NEW CHAIR’S VACCINE STANCE
Gaitanis, who served as director of child neurology at Brown University, has promoted the view that families should decide whether to vaccinate their children. He has repeatedly been a paid medical expert in vaccine-injury cases, including several tied to the MMR vaccine.
He signed a letter in January 2025 supporting Kennedy’s nomination as secretary, citing his calls for vaccine transparency, and has appeared with Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group founded by Kennedy, and at events tied to Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
A longtime advocate of leucovorin as an autism treatment, Gaitanis, alongside Fogel and others, met NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya in August 2025 to discuss leucovorin research.
A month later, President Donald Trump, Kennedy, and senior health officials publicly promoted the drug during a White House event where Trump linked vaccines to autism, a claim not backed by science.
The Food and Drug Administration approved this year the decades-old generic drug to treat a rare genetic disorder that causes autism-like symptoms, but not for children with the broader diagnosis, citing a lack of data.
In April, Gaitanis co-founded and served as chief medical officer of a company offering telehealth for families of autistic children seeking leucovorin care.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional Reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco; Editing by Nia Williams and Rod Nickel)
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