RFK Jr. Cherry-Picks and Misuses Data on Aluminum-Containing Vaccines

A large Danish study recently provided reassurance that aluminum-containing vaccines are not associated with increased rates of chronic health conditions in children, including autism. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misrepresented the study’s findings, claiming that the paper’s supplementary data “shows calamitous evidence of harm.”

The study, published on July 15 in Annals of Internal Medicine, drew attention because of its large size and rigorous methods. Anti-vaccine activists, however, quickly seized on it to claim that it was flawed, particularly after the journal mistakenly uploaded an earlier version of the supplementary data.

Kennedy declared in an X post last month that the authors used a “long parade of statistical artifices” to “achieve their deceptive results,” incorrectly alleging that the study actually showed an association between vaccines and autism. He linked to an article with his byline on TrialSiteNews, which consisted of a list of criticisms of the study peppered with unfounded accusations on the researchers’ motives. It called for the journal to “immediately retract this badly flawed study.”