Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent the primary day of his back-to-back affirmation hearings deftly avoiding questions on his views on vaccines. On the second day, when a distinguished Republican senator insisted there was no hyperlink between vaccines and autism, Mr. Kennedy shot again {that a} new examine “confirmed the other.”
“I simply wish to comply with the science,” Mr. Kennedy declared.
Following the science has been a well-known chorus for Mr. Kennedy, whose affirmation as well being secretary seems all however assured in a vote anticipated Thursday. However the change within the Senate raises questions on simply what sort of science Mr. Kennedy is consulting. It foreshadows how, if confirmed, Mr. Kennedy might proceed to sow doubts about vaccines.
Lecturers have pounced on the examine that Mr. Kennedy cited through the listening to, shredding it as methodologically defective and biased. The examine emanated from a community of vaccine skeptics who share a few of Mr. Kennedy’s views — an ecosystem that features the writer of the examine, the editor of the journal that printed it and the advocacy group that financed it.
“We authors have been delighted and honored that R.F.Ok. Jr. referred to our work in his affirmation listening to,” the examine’s lead writer, Anthony Mawson, mentioned in an electronic mail. A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Dr. Mawson, an epidemiologist, mentioned he first met Mr. Kennedy at an autism convention in 2017. Mr. Kennedy cites Dr. Mawson’s analysis 33 instances in his 2023 ebook, “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Communicate.”
His examine was rejected “with out rationalization” by a number of mainstream medical journals, Dr. Mawson mentioned. So he turned for recommendation to Andrew Wakefield, the writer of the 1998 examine, now retracted, that sparked the preliminary furor over vaccines and autism. Mr. Wakefield inspired him to submit the examine to a brand new journal referred to as Science, Public Well being Coverage and the Legislation.
That publication is led by some notable vaccine critics, together with three who headlined a Washington rally in 2022 with Mr. Kennedy to protest Covid vaccine mandates.
Because the nation’s well being secretary, Mr. Kennedy “would have vast powers to advance his favored analysis research, publications, or scientific information,” in keeping with Lawrence O. Gostin, a public well being regulation knowledgeable at Georgetown College. Mr. Kennedy’s critics concern that the general public can have neither the time nor the coaching to kind via a battle that appears to pit one examine towards one other, and that the end result might be a speedy decline in confidence in vaccines.
“The Mawson paper epitomizes Kennedy’s constant incapability to differentiate junk science from dependable data,” mentioned Dr. John P. Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical Faculty, who mentioned that examine and among the others Mr. Kennedy has cited up to now are printed by “fringe journals.”
Mr. Kennedy has mentioned that he’s not anti-vaccine, however somewhat in favor of vaccine security.
“I help the measles vaccine. I help the polio vaccine,” Mr. Kennedy mentioned on the primary day of his affirmation hearings. “I’ll do nothing as H.H.S. secretary that makes it troublesome or discourages individuals from taking it.”
Mr. Kennedy’s insistence that extra analysis is important in terms of vaccine security has drawn help from some Republicans, who say they welcome his skepticism.
“I don’t perceive why my colleagues abruptly say we will’t query science,” Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, mentioned throughout considered one of Mr. Kennedy’s hearings. He added, “While you begin wanting on the rise of autism, why wouldn’t we be taking a look at every part?”
However Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist on the College of Minnesota who has suggested administrations of each events, mentioned Mr. Kennedy’s calls for for extra information go too far after they concern vaccines and autism. Mainstream scientists say the difficulty is settled.
“That’s the equal of me saying till Newton comes again and exhibits me that apple falling from the tree, I don’t imagine gravity exists,” Dr. Osterholm mentioned.
Medical doctors who’ve examined the way in which Mr. Kennedy makes use of scientific analysis say he additionally tends to cherry-pick specific findings from distinguished researchers, as he did throughout a podcast in 2022.
Throughout that look, he cited a examine printed within the journal Pediatrics in 2000 to recommend that enhancements in sanitation and hygiene — and never vaccines — fueled a drop in deaths from infectious ailments through the first half of the twentieth century. That’s true. However Mr. Kennedy failed to notice that the examine additionally reported that vaccines launched within the second half of the twentieth century had “nearly eradicated” deaths from ailments together with polio and measles.
Throughout considered one of his affirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy cited work by a widely known vaccine scientist, Dr. Gregory Poland, to recommend Black individuals ought to comply with a distinct vaccine schedule as a result of they wanted fewer antigens, the vaccine elements that provoke an immune response.
Dr. Poland didn’t reply to requests for remark. However he advised Nationwide Public Radio that his work didn’t help Mr. Kennedy’s assertion.
Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Mawson have lengthy aired comparable considerations about vaccines.
In an look earlier than the Mississippi legislature in 2009, Dr. Mawson referred to as for extra vaccine security analysis and “a extra versatile method to vaccination necessities for college attendance.” In a 2011 lawsuit, Dr. Mawson mentioned the testimony had price him his job as an epidemiologist on the College of Mississippi Medical Heart.
In 2017, Dr. Mawson printed a pilot examine evaluating vaccinated to unvaccinated kids.
The examine relied on a survey of oldsters who home-schooled their kids and located greater charges of autism amongst vaccinated kids, in contrast with those that had not been vaccinated. The examine was funded partly by Era Rescue, a nonprofit related to Jenny McCarthy, a tv character who has promoted claims of a hyperlink between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Mawson by that point had established the Chalfont Analysis Institute, a charity that operates out of his dwelling in Jackson, Miss. The institute reported income of simply $57 in 2021, the latest figures obtainable.
In 2019, it acquired charitable contributions of $160,000, tax data present. The majority of that cash, $150,000, got here from the Nationwide Vaccine Data Heart, a bunch whose mission contains supporting analysis on “vaccine-associated deaths, accidents and persistent sickness.”
Like Mr. Kennedy, the group’s president and co-founder, Barbara Loe Fisher, has lengthy referred to as for analysis evaluating “complete well being outcomes” together with the chance of autism, in vaccinated and unvaccinated kids. When Dr. Mawson approached her group with a proposal, she mentioned, the middle reviewed his pilot examine of 2017, accepted his plan and offered $150,000 in funding.
That cash paid for the paper Mr. Kennedy cited on the listening to, throughout an change with Senator Invoice Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and a health care provider.
The journal that printed the examine, Science, Public Well being Coverage and the Legislation, advertises itself as peer-reviewed, which means its analysis is evaluated by nameless unbiased consultants earlier than publication. Dr. Mawson mentioned his paper had undergone evaluation by two such consultants.
Some individuals related to the journal are additionally related to Mr. Kennedy.
James Lyons-Weiler, the journal’s editor in chief, described himself as a longtime ally of Mr. Kennedy’s in a yearslong “struggle throughout 20 states” for vaccine exemptions.
“Honored to name him my buddy,” he wrote on social media final yr.
The journal’s editorial board contains the chief govt and the chief scientific officer of Youngsters’s Well being Protection, the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy led till he started his presidential marketing campaign in 2023.
The board additionally contains members who promote services or products for people who find themselves involved about vaccines. Considered one of its editorial board members provides $2,350 telehealth appointments for “post-vaccine syndrome.” One other sells $90 “spike detox” dietary supplements marketed for “vaccine damage syndrome” that’s meant to get “you again to that pre-Covid feeling.”
The examine by Dr. Mawson that Mr. Kennedy cited on the listening to centered on about 47,000 kids enrolled in Florida Medicaid from 1999 to 2011 and checked out billing information to find out their vaccination standing.
The examine discovered only a few billing data for unvaccinated kids with autism — eight who have been born prematurely and 54 general. It concluded that vaccination was considerably related to greater charges of neurodevelopmental problems, together with autism, significantly in infants who have been born prematurely.
In contrast, large-scale research in revered medical journals, together with an evaluation of 5 research involving greater than 1.2 million kids, have discovered no affiliation between vaccines and autism.
However whilst Dr. Mawson’s analysis took form, issues emerged. The paper notes that researchers misplaced entry to the database they used to carry out the examine. Dr. Alex Morozov, an knowledgeable on medical trial design who met with Dr. Mawson to debate the examine, mentioned he considered that as a crimson flag.
Dr. Morozov additionally mentioned the examine had a “elementary flaw”: It did not account for the chance that vaccinated kids might need extra encounters with the medical system than unvaccinated kids, whose sicknesses wouldn’t be captured by billing information.
The examine additionally did not account for components like household historical past of autism, the kid’s gender (boys are identified with greater charges of autism than women) or the chance that kids might need been vaccinated exterior the Florida Medicaid system, mentioned Bertha Hidalgo, an affiliate professor of epidemiology on the College of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Mawson strongly defended the work, noting that the examine “rigorously paperwork each its strengths and limitations,” however contending that critics centered solely on the constraints. “Nonetheless,” he mentioned, “additional analysis is required to copy the findings and to unravel the mechanisms concerned.”
On the Senate listening to, Mr. Cassidy pressed Mr. Kennedy to just accept that the vaccines and autism debate was settled. He reminded Mr. Kennedy that he had been proven the examine of 1.2 million kids that discovered no hyperlink between the 2.
“I’m a doc, making an attempt to know,” Mr. Cassidy mentioned, including, “Persuade me that you’ll grow to be the general public well being advocate, however not simply churn outdated data in order that there’s by no means a conclusion.”
To that, Mr. Kennedy replied, “I’m going to be an advocate for robust science. You present me these scientific research, and also you and I can meet about it. And there are different research as nicely. I’d love to indicate these to you.”
