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Sylvia Fogel, reshaping U.S. autism research strategy

In a wide-ranging and provocative interview, the chair of the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee shares her views on vaccines, regression, neuroimmune conditions and more.

By Brady Huggett

17 September 2026 | 2 min read

https://doi.org/10.53053/LGRP8878 Cite this article

Editor's note

Update: Following the publication of this interview, on 18 September 2026, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced Sylvia Fogel as chair of the IACC, Reuters reports, naming John Gaitanis, director of the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as the new chair. Fogel remains on the committee as one of 20 public members, according to Reuters.

Last month, the panel that advises the U.S. government on autism research funding adopted a new strategic plan. The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) de-emphasized genetics and called for more research on environmental factors and the causes of regression, among other topics.

We interviewed IACC chair Sylvia Fogel, a psychiatrist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, about her views on autism and priorities for research. In this wide-ranging and provocative conversation, conducted over two sessions, we asked Fogel for her thoughts on vaccines, regression and neuroimmune conditions, such as PANS and PANDAS. We also asked her about the makeup of the current IACC committee and its goals.

“We have open spaces on the committee,” Fogel says. “I hope that we could have some more researchers on the committee.”

Read the transcript.

The video has been edited to combine the parts of the two interviews that discuss related topics and remove repetitive questions and answers.