Medical journal rejects Kennedy's call for retraction of vaccine study
Kennedy has long promoted doubts about vaccines' safety and efficacy and as health secretary has upended the federal government's process for recommending immunisation. A recent media report said he has been considering whether to initiate a review of shots that contain aluminium, which he said are linked to autoimmune diseases and allergies.
The study, funded by the Danish government and published in July in the Annals of Internal Medicine, analysed nationwide registry data for more than 1.2-million children over more than two decades. It did not find evidence that exposure to aluminium in vaccines had caused an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic or neurodevelopmental disorders.
The work is by far the best available evidence on the question of the safety of aluminium in vaccines, said Adam Finn, a childhood vaccination expert in the UK and paediatrician at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the study.
"It's solid, [a] massive dataset and high-quality data," he said.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

TimesLIVE
a day ago
- TimesLIVE
Nasa Crew-10 astronauts depart space station after five months
Four astronauts from Nasa's Crew-10 mission departed the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, heading for a splashdown off the US west coast on Saturday morning after a five-month crew rotation mission at the orbiting lab. US astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, the Crew-10 commander, boarded the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule on Friday afternoon along with Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov ahead of a 17.5-hour trek back to Earth to a splashdown site off the California coast. The four-person crew launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission that replaced the Crew-9 crew, which included Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronaut pair left on the station by Boeing's Starliner capsule. Five months after the Starliner mission's conclusion, Wilmore this week retired from Nasa after a 25-year career in which he flew four different spacecraft and logged a total of 464 days in space. Wilmore was a key technical adviser to Boeing's Starliner programme along with Williams, who remains at the agency in its astronaut corps. The four astronauts in the Crew-10 capsule are scheduled for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 11.33am ET (3.33pm GMT) Saturday. Nasa said they are returning to Earth with "important and time-sensitive research" conducted in the microgravity environment of the ISS during the 146-day mission. The astronauts had over 200 science experiments on their to-do list. Reuters

TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Medical journal rejects Kennedy's call for retraction of vaccine study
An influential US medical journal is rejecting a call from US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr to retract a large Danish study that found aluminium ingredients in vaccines do not increase health risks for children, the journal's editor told Reuters. Kennedy has long promoted doubts about vaccines' safety and efficacy and as health secretary has upended the federal government's process for recommending immunisation. A recent media report said he has been considering whether to initiate a review of shots that contain aluminium, which he said are linked to autoimmune diseases and allergies. The study, funded by the Danish government and published in July in the Annals of Internal Medicine, analysed nationwide registry data for more than 1.2-million children over more than two decades. It did not find evidence that exposure to aluminium in vaccines had caused an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic or neurodevelopmental disorders. The work is by far the best available evidence on the question of the safety of aluminium in vaccines, said Adam Finn, a childhood vaccination expert in the UK and paediatrician at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the study. "It's solid, [a] massive dataset and high-quality data," he said.


Eyewitness News
06-08-2025
- Eyewitness News
US axes mRNA vaccine contracts, casting safety doubts
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced it would terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, questioning the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives. The announcement, made by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., marks his latest effort to weave vaccine scepticism into the core of US government policy. "We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted," Kennedy said in a statement. The health department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is "terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu," he added. "We're shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate." The changes affect Moderna's mRNA bird flu vaccine - a move the company itself disclosed in May - as well as numerous other programs, including "rejection or cancellation of multiple pre-award solicitations" from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Sanofi. In total, the affected projects are worth "nearly $500 million," the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. Certain late-stage projects were excluded from the move "to preserve prior taxpayer investment." "Let me be absolutely clear: HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them," Secretary Kennedy said. "That's why we're moving beyond the limitations of mRNA and investing in better solutions." Since taking office, Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunisation, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy - firing, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government and replacing them with his own appointees. In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record. He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism. Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated forms of the target virus or bacteria, mRNA shots deliver genetic instructions into the host's cells, prompting them to produce a harmless decoy of the pathogen and train the immune system to fight the real thing. Though in development for decades, mRNA vaccines were propelled from lab benches to widespread use through President Trump's Operation Warp Speed - a public-private partnership led by BARDA that poured billions into companies to accelerate development. The technology's pioneers, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work contributing "to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times."