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New McCullough Foundation study: COVID-vaccinated children show higher odds of autism and ADHD in federal survey data

Why it matters

This is the McCullough Foundation’s newest paper, posted today, and it uses the federal government’s own National Health Interview Survey rather than a private dataset. That makes it easy for anyone, including HHS, to check. It is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed yet.

A thick printed scientific report on a desk

On October 5, 2026, Nicolas Hulscher, Dr. Peter McCullough and four co-authors posted “Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in COVID-19-Vaccinated Versus Unvaccinated U.S. Children: Analysis of the National Health Interview Survey, 2022–2024” to the Zenodo research repository.

The authors compared about 22,000 children in the survey. After adjusting for other factors, they report that COVID-vaccinated children had higher odds of current autism (about 32% higher), ADHD (33%), anxiety (27%) and asthma (24%), and more use of special education, therapy and mental-health medication. The strongest signal they report is in children aged 5 to 7 who received three or more doses, at 154% higher adjusted odds of autism.

The authors themselves note that a cross-sectional survey can show an association but cannot prove the vaccine caused it, and they call for prospective cohort studies. The paper is a preprint and has not been through journal peer review. Mainstream bodies maintain that COVID-19 vaccines do not cause autism. Read the full paper at the link below.

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