CNN’s Sanjay Gupta slams RFK, Jr., forgets about Hannah Poling

Gupta in 2008 versus 2025

What Happened to Dr. Gupta?

The controversy surrounding vaccines and autism is ongoing, and Robert Kennedy’s nomination to head HHS is fueling the flames.

It is to be expected that mainstream news outlets will once again deny, deny, deny any connection. Pharmaceutical advertising is their mainstay, especially TV news networks like CNN, and therefore viewers should be skeptical of any pronouncements about pharma’s products.

This is what CNN’s top medical expert had to say about RFK at HHS.

Nov 15, 2025, CNN: 'Disbelief': Dr. Sanjay Gupta on medical community reaction to RFK Jr. nomination

Dr. Gupta was asked about the reaction he was seeing to RFK’s nomination as head of HHS.

. . . [Kennedy] has these beliefs that don’t seem to be rooted in science, and he seems to have a distain at times for the scientists who talk about these things, and I think that’s their primary concern.

CNN’s Bianna Golodryga:

. . . He spread false claims about vaccines for years over social media. . . .

Dr. Gupta:

. . . The vaccines and autism issue is the real flashpoint.

As you probably know, this started in the late ‘90s with a paper that was subsequently retracted, but it was a paper of 12 children who developed autism, who had also had the MMR.

And the authors of the paper, the author Andrew Wakefield made this cause and effect sort of relationship between the vaccines and autism. Again the paper was subsequently retracted. It was found, the cause and effect relationship was not found to hold up.

Gupta said a 15 year long vaccinated/unvaccinated study showed no link.

And it inspired lots of studies after that, big studies, following hundreds to thousands of children, some who’ve been vaccinated, some who’ve not been vaccinated. Basically saying, let’s follow these children for 15 years and see what happens.

And what they found was that there was no relationship between the vaccines and autism.

Those studies were subsequently replicated, and that’s why we arrive at this position in the medical community that we’re still now sure what causes autism, but it’s very clear that vaccines do not.

Autism starts in the womb

I should also point out. . . neuroimaging has improved over the last 25 years. So we now see changes in the brains of very young children even within the womb, certainly before they’ve been vaccinated. We see autism related changes in the brain. So we know that something is happening much earlier than vaccines would even be given.

Again we don’t know what those things are. Could be some environmental influence, but these are important data points.

And again, studies that he has seen, still despite that, just as recently as a few months ago, he says, I believe that vaccines cause autism. He said that specifically.

That’s a distain, not only for the science, but I think for the messengers who’ve created that science. . . .

The prevailing evidence is that vaccines don’t cause autism. Have there been children who’ve received vaccines and then shortly thereafter had autism diagnosis? Absolutely, and it’s very emotional. How does he sort of put that all together?

Nov 15, 2025, CNN: See Dr. Gupta’s reaction to Trump picking RFK Jr. to lead HHS

CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked Dr. Gupta about the prospects of RFK, Jr. as head of HHS.

Gupta talked about the fact that “around a million deaths were prevented as a result of those vaccines.” He said he was concerned about the levels of herd immunity dropping off.

Hunt asked Gupta about the declining trust in our scientists post COVID. Gupta mentioned that the public is “concerned about things like conflict,” which he didn’t get into.

Gupta acknowledged the reality of how sick Americans are.

We spend, in this country, four and a half trillion on health care, and we have some of the worst outcomes in the developed world, is something that a lot of people seize onto as well.

Gupta went on to accuse Kennedy of “waffling” on his position on vaccines.

Gupta’s current position on vaccines and autism is in sharp contrast to what he was saying back in 2008 when he talked to the father of Hannah Poling, Dr. Jon Poling.

April, 2008, CNN'S Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews Dr. Jon Poling HERE.

We are here with Dr. Jon Poling. First all, he is a neurologist. He is also the father of Hannah Poling.

Her case of autism diagnosis was conceded by the federal government as having been contributed to by vaccines.

That was a pretty startling thing, I think, for a lot of people to hear.

I talked to a lot of experts about this. They say look, vaccines in no way cause autism. You’re a neurologist; you’re also the father of Hannah, what do you say?

Dr. Poling: I think you bring up a really important point. The government, actually the Department of Health and Human Services conceded that my daughter’s medical problems, which are autism, encephalopathy, seizures, were brought on by vaccination.

Gupta: That’s startling for a lot of people to hear that because we’ve been taught for so long—you’re a doctor, I’m a doctor. We go to medical school. We hear—there’s so many good things about vaccine obviously. They prevent life-threatening illnesses that we’ve heard about, but in your daughter’s case, it turned out to be a problem.

Poling: I wouldn’t have believed it until it happened to me. To be honest with you, as a doctor, until it happened to me, until I saw the regression, until I saw a normal 18 month old toddler descend into autism, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible.

Gupta: The experts that I’ve talked to, including the director of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, says, that was a rare case. That is not likely to be the norm. That’s likely to be an exception.

What do you say to that?

Poling: A lot of the media outlets have put out a statement that says rare, underlying, genetic mitochondrial disease.

Now that’s five words. Four of those are not accurate in the sense that we know now, we didn’t know back in 2001, that mitochrondrial dysfunction is rare—actually not rare.

Two, we don’t know if it was underlying or if it was something that developed later, although certainly there’s some genetic underpinnings to it.

The only word correct is mitochondrial and the difference between disease and dysfunction.

Gupta: So what you believe is that, did Hannah have some sort of predisposition, and then the vaccines tipped her over the edge into developing autism? What is your belief now?

Poling: I don’t think that vaccines are the only way that you can tip over a child like Hannah to regress and have an encephalopathy and regress into autism.

There are probably multiple triggers.

In my daughter, clearly, it was the vaccinations. That was our experience. . . .

Gupta: I have to tell you, as a doctor, now as a parent, as you know, I have two daughters.

So I have a two and a half year old and a 13-month-old, what does that mean for me?

They’re perfectly normal. They seem to me to be, they’re delightful, and I plan on getting them vaccinated. I got my two and a half year old vaccinated on time.

What advice would you have now having gone through what you’ve gone through?

Poling: First and foremost, I am pro-vaccine. I’m in favor of safe vaccination. I’m the last person who wants to see measles or polio come back.. . .

I think what a parent needs to do now is talk with their pediatrician, and pediatricians need to actually have a grassroots movement amongst the pediatricians and the AAP to develop safe vaccine schedules for each individual patient.

You and I are physicians, and we took an oath to our individual patient. We didn’t take an oath for the public health or the greater good, so each pediatrician has to focus on that.

So, what happened?

Somehow by 2025, Gupta became convinced that there is no link between vaccines and autism

Have pediatricians done what Dr. Poling called for, individualized vaccination schedules? No.

Do we have any idea how many children, just like Hannah Poling, are at risk to develop autism because of a mitochondrial issue? No.

Incredibly, during the past 17 years since we first learned about Hannah Poling’s case, NOTHING has been done about any of this. Every child is lined up to receive the same battery of vaccines starting at birth. No one can tell which child is at risk for a vaccine reaction.

Dr. Gupta falsely claimed there was a 15 year long comparison study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children that showed no difference in the rate of autism.

Gupta speculated that autism starts in the womb, conveniently ignoring the regression experienced by a third of autistic children, including Hannah Poling.

Gupta repeatedly talked about how beneficial vaccines are in preventing disease, yet he had absolutely no concern about what autism is doing to children.

BACK IN 2008 when he sat down with Hannah Poling’s father and acknowledged that HHS agreed that vaccines caused her autism, the autism rate in the U.S. was one in 150 children, one in 92 boys. Back then, he was worried about vaccinating his own children.

Today the autism rate is one in every 36 children, one in every 22 boys, and he’s convinced that there is no link.

Clearly it doesn’t matter to the medical community how many more children are diagnosed with autism. Nothing stands in the way of promoting vaccines as safe and effective.

I would like to ask Dr. Gupta, What would be the consequences if it were finally acknowledged that, yes, vaccines cause autism?

This is what Gupta won’t even consider.

YOUR THOUGHTS?