RFK Jr. questions journal's removal of vaccine study supporting CDC's childhood immunization changes

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a letter Monday that he sent a medical journal last week, seeking the reasons it removed a study that his vaccine advisory panel cited to change the childhood immunization schedule.

The controversial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices overhauled the childhood vaccine schedule earlier this year, citing a loss of trust in vaccines.

Kennedy's former personal lawyer, Aaron Siri, cited a 2021 study titled “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature," in a speech he gave to the committee, which has since been removed from the Toxicology Reports journal. 

“As you may know, research integrity and academic freedom have been important issues to me for decades in my private career and continue to be important to me in government service,” Kennedy wrote to Toxicology Reports Editor-in-Chief Lawrence Lash. "Retraction and even removal of seriously flawed publications is appropriate in certain cases. However, it should be accompanied by a transparent and full explanation of why such an action was carried out." 

The secretary blasted Lash for only issuing a two-sentence announcement that explained the retraction, stating he needed more to understand the basis for the decision.

The publisher behind the report said it was retracted because "the conclusions presented in the article are not supported by the methodology employed." It noted the author of the study opposes retracting the report.

The study was conducted by Neil Miller and found the rate of sudden infant deaths occurring after vaccinations was “statistically significant,” determining there was less than a 1 in 100,000 chance that the findings were not related to some real effect, according to The Hill. 

The paper also found that the research "does not prove an association between infant vaccines and sudden infant deaths.”

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.