FDA Removes Warning on Unproven Autism Treatments Amid Shift in Health Policy

A critical public health advisory warning consumers about potentially harmful autism “treatments” has disappeared from federal government websites, raising concerns among advocates for people with autism. The Food and Drug Administration quietly removed the webpage late last year during what the Department of Health and Human Services described as “a routine clean up of dated content.”

The now-removed advisory had explicitly warned against several unproven and potentially dangerous products marketed as autism treatments, including chlorine dioxide (an industrial bleaching agent), chelating agents, hyperbaric oxygen therapies, and raw camel milk. Though the page hadn’t been updated since 2019, advocates argue the warnings remain essential.

“It may be an older page, but those warnings are still necessary,” said Zoe Gross, a director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit policy organization run by and for autistic people. “People are still being preyed on by these alternative treatments like chelation and chlorine dioxide. Those can both kill people.”

The removal coincides with significant changes in federal health policy direction under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned conventional medical science regarding autism and vaccine safety. Kennedy has been vocal about his intention to reshape the FDA’s approach to alternative treatments. In October 2024, shortly before Donald Trump won the presidency, Kennedy pledged on social media that the FDA’s “war on public health” was ending.

“This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” Kennedy wrote at the time.

The FDA had, since at least 2010, warned consumers against chlorine dioxide—often marketed as “Miracle Mineral Solution”—stating that when mixed, it “develops into a dangerous bleach which has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.” However, no such warnings about chlorine dioxide currently appear on consumer pages of the FDA website.

When asked by ProPublica whether the agency now endorses chlorine dioxide as a treatment for autism, HHS did not provide an answer.

Kennedy’s influence extends beyond website content. In January, he reconstituted an advisory panel on autism, appointing individuals who have promoted various unproven remedies including hyperbaric oxygen therapy and chelation—a process intended to remove heavy metals from the body. These treatments have been linked to fatalities. In 2005, a 5-year-old autistic boy died in Pennsylvania after a chelation session, and last year, another 5-year-old died in Michigan in a hyperbaric chamber fire while being treated for an attention disorder.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network published a statement criticizing the newly configured HHS autism panel as “overwhelmingly made up of anti-vaccine advocates and peddlers of dangerous quack autism ‘treatments.'” HHS responded that such claims are “false” and that the new members are experienced in research and clinical care, committed to “advancing innovation in autism research, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.”

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ProPublica that Kennedy’s actions demonstrate he is “perfectly willing to embrace bogus therapies.”

Yale University professor emeritus Dr. Fred Volkmar, who edited the definitive “Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders,” noted that early diagnosis and proven treatments have led to significant improvements for people with autism. “These days, probably 70% to 75% of children on the autism spectrum will grow up to be fully independent or semi-independent adults,” he said.

However, Volkmar warned that some parents fall prey to promises of quick cures that don’t exist, potentially diverting children from treatments with proven benefits. “It’s a shame that the federal government is not being more helpful to parents in understanding what does and doesn’t work,” he concluded.