RFK Jr.'s health department is seeking Americans' medical records. Here's what's going on

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking access to Americans’ medical records but says the initiative isn't directed at looking into a link between vaccines and autism.

In a statement to USA TODAY on June 4, an HHS spokesperson shared that the agency is "strengthening public health surveillance and modernizing data systems to better understand and combat the childhood chronic disease epidemic as part of Secretary (Robert F.) Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. Americans deserve robust systems to monitor the drivers of chronic illness."

The statement comes after KFF Health News reported Kennedy, the health secretary, is pursuing these records in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism. The World Health Organization and other reputable health agencies around the world have repeatedly stated that evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism.

Funding for the initiative was already allocated via programs under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. The initiative is not evidence of a national patient database or master patient index, the source added.

Autism has long been a major topic of interest for Kennedy. He said shortly after his confirmation as health secretary that he planned to find the cause of it by his first September in office. The deadline has since passed, and many scientists and autism advocates were immediately skeptical of it anyway, saying it oversimplified a deeply complex issue.

Last year, HHS denied it was planning an autism registry after the National Institutes of Health appeared to share plans for one. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya shared the initiative that could create "disease registries" to research autism in a presentation about his vision for the department at a Council of the Councils meeting on April 21, 2025, CBS News reported. On April 25, an HHS official told USA TODAY it is not creating such a registry.

The registries came up as part of an initiative to create a "real-world data platform" that would pull together information from the public and private sectors to support research, an HHS official told USA TODAY at the time. The official did not respond to USA TODAY's clarifying questions about other disease registries or the use of privately held health data.

Contributing: Kinsey Crowley, USA TODAY