Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policies changes facing new scrutiny
The Guardian reports:
By Michelle R. Smith
“”Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them.
In some cases, the actions occurred years after scientists first raised alarms about the studies’ scientific merits.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary who has been a leader in the anti-vaccine movement for decades, relied on two of the studies that are now facing scrutiny for a 2023 book he co-wrote that argued unvaccinated children were healthier than children who had been vaccinated. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited one of the papers when it changed its long-held position that vaccines do not cause autism, cutting against the scientific consensus. And all three papers were cited by an anti-vaccine lawyer who called for changes to the childhood immunization schedule before an influential federal vaccine advisory panel.”
“It was not clear why the journals have not acted until now. Scientists who previously criticized the papers said the actions are a positive step, as public health officials and physicians across the US are reporting a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles. They argue that the three studies have been used by the anti-vaccine movement to plant seeds of doubt with parents, eroding confidence in the safety of life-saving vaccines.
“People and organizations intent on spreading vaccine misinformation have been very savvy in their misuse of scientific terms, such as ‘gold-standard science’”, and publishing flawed studies to give their claims the appearance of credibility and confuse the public, said Dr Karina Top, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. “These papers are poor science, it appears the authors are making the data fit their hypothesis that vaccines are harmful.”
The three papers shared a common theme: the idea that vaccinated children had a greater risk of health problems than unvaccinated children. But all three have been roundly criticized for using poor methodologies and analyses.
One, by Neil Z Miller, was published in 2021 in Toxicology Reports and suggested a “link between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Another, published in 2020 by Sage Open Medicine and co-authored by Miller and Brian S Hooker, suggested vaccinated children had higher rates of certain health problems like developmental delays and asthma than did unvaccinated children. The third, by Carolyn M Gallagher and Melody S Goodman, was published in 2010 in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, and found boys vaccinated for Hepatitis B in their first four weeks of life were more likely to be diagnosed with autism.
Some of the four researchers involved said they disagree with the journals’ decisions. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not return emails seeking comment.
Aaron Siri, who has previously acted as Kennedy’s lawyer, cited the three papers as evidence for a presentation he was invited to give to the federal vaccine advisory committee in December. In a statement to the Guardian, he compared the scrutiny the papers have come under by scientific journals to a “targeted assassination”. He also stood by his claim that there is no “available evidence” that vaccines are “safe and effective”, alleging his assessment relied on hundreds of other articles, reviews, “and trial documents.
Kennedy co-wrote the book Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak with Hooker, the first author on the Sage study that is now under investigation. That paper served as a crucial pillar in chapter 2 of the book, in which he and Kennedy attempted to show that vaccinated children have higher rates of health problems such as asthma, developmental delays and gastrointestinal disorders.”
“The book also revealed insights into how the paper got published, noting that five medical journals rejected the paper outright before Sage considered it. It also said Sage had trouble finding researchers willing to review it, and the peer review process took 11 months to complete with multiple rounds of revisions.
Kennedy and Hooker worked together for years when Kennedy was leading the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, where Hooker now holds the title “chief scientific officer”.
An HHS spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether Kennedy would update his book.
Sage Open Medicine, the journal that published the paper, attached an expression of concern to it on 18 May, several weeks after the Guardian first inquired about a detailed complaint emailed to the journal in January 2025. It says the paper is under investigation.
The complaint was submitted to Sage anonymously by a pediatrician and scientist who shared it with the Guardian on condition of anonymity because they said they had been harassed in the past by supporters of the anti-vaccine movement. The doctor said they made the complaint – and then alerted the Guardian to it more than a year later – because they have seen how “such studies have scared parents out of vaccinating their children.
Hooker did not respond to emails seeking comments. Miller said in an email the investigation had to do with what he said were false allegations that the data came from another source and was not disclosed. He said the expression of concern was not about its methodology or findings.
“I am not concerned about this investigation because the aspersions are false,” Miller said.
Sage said it would not comment on specifics during the investigation.
“A decision on the paper will be made once all relevant information has been reviewed and the authors have had an opportunity to respond to the concerns raised,” a spokesperson said.””
Excerpt From
“Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policy changes facing new scrutiny”
Michelle R Smith
The Guardian
https://apple.news/AT8aeR2MJSIimY3XIonvaGA
This material may be protected by copyright.
My comments:
Kennedy & Hooker are both well known for academic dishonesty including: fabricating “data”, excluding authoritative studies which refute their unfounded claims, fabricating statements which are not factual and then attributing those false statements to well known medical & scientific authorities, and making wild claims with no supporting evidence.
Siri’s statement that “there is no available evidence that vaccines are safe and effective” is patently FALSE and dangerous—even DEADLY. And Siri has no valid credentials, experience or training to even opine such an obvious falsehood.
There is decades of evidence to the contrary and ZERO evidence to back up his claim that hundreds of articles, reviews, and trial documents support his false claim.
Kennedy’s false claims about vaccines fueled the deadly measles outbreaks in Samoa and Tonga as well as his mismanagement of the Texas measles outbreak which resulted in two pediatric deaths and another young adult death in a nearby state. And that’s not all—Kennedy mismanaged that outbreak by failing to mount the correct response with the full resources available to him as the head of HHS. He did not urge immediate efforts to vaccinate the large number of children with the readily available, inexpensive, highly effective, and SAFE MMR vaccine. He did not engage with the leaders of the Mennonite community to recommend immediate vaccination; instead he pushed an ineffective and potentially DEADLY regimen of “chicken soup, cod liver oil, and vitamin A supplements” which resulted in multiple children presenting to Children’s Hospitals with liver dysfunction & other symptoms of hypervitaminosis A—something virtually unheard of in the United States.
Kennedy refused to recommend vaccination when it could have altered the course of the outbreak and instead championed two rogue physicians as “heroes”—one of whom was actively infected with measles himself and a source of infection for the very susceptible patients he “treated” with Kennedy’s ineffective and potentially DEADLY concocted “remedy.”
After that fiasco, Kennedy plunged right into firing all the medical & scientific experts at all the agencies that fall under the HHS umbrella and replaced them with other vaccine conspiracy theorists of his personal choosing, slashed the agencies budgets, published his “MAHA” document for which he relied on misinformation and his own made up claims with no evidence to support his heretical assertions.
Kennedy is a disaster. He MUST BE REMOVED immediately, all the harmful actions he has taken as the head of HHS must be reversed, and a highly competent, properly vetted medical expert with the managerial experience to properly manage the HHS must replace him!
By Michelle R. Smith
“”Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them.
In some cases, the actions occurred years after scientists first raised alarms about the studies’ scientific merits.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary who has been a leader in the anti-vaccine movement for decades, relied on two of the studies that are now facing scrutiny for a 2023 book he co-wrote that argued unvaccinated children were healthier than children who had been vaccinated. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited one of the papers when it changed its long-held position that vaccines do not cause autism, cutting against the scientific consensus. And all three papers were cited by an anti-vaccine lawyer who called for changes to the childhood immunization schedule before an influential federal vaccine advisory panel.”
“It was not clear why the journals have not acted until now. Scientists who previously criticized the papers said the actions are a positive step, as public health officials and physicians across the US are reporting a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles. They argue that the three studies have been used by the anti-vaccine movement to plant seeds of doubt with parents, eroding confidence in the safety of life-saving vaccines.
“People and organizations intent on spreading vaccine misinformation have been very savvy in their misuse of scientific terms, such as ‘gold-standard science’”, and publishing flawed studies to give their claims the appearance of credibility and confuse the public, said Dr Karina Top, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. “These papers are poor science, it appears the authors are making the data fit their hypothesis that vaccines are harmful.”
The three papers shared a common theme: the idea that vaccinated children had a greater risk of health problems than unvaccinated children. But all three have been roundly criticized for using poor methodologies and analyses.
One, by Neil Z Miller, was published in 2021 in Toxicology Reports and suggested a “link between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Another, published in 2020 by Sage Open Medicine and co-authored by Miller and Brian S Hooker, suggested vaccinated children had higher rates of certain health problems like developmental delays and asthma than did unvaccinated children. The third, by Carolyn M Gallagher and Melody S Goodman, was published in 2010 in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, and found boys vaccinated for Hepatitis B in their first four weeks of life were more likely to be diagnosed with autism.
Some of the four researchers involved said they disagree with the journals’ decisions. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not return emails seeking comment.
Aaron Siri, who has previously acted as Kennedy’s lawyer, cited the three papers as evidence for a presentation he was invited to give to the federal vaccine advisory committee in December. In a statement to the Guardian, he compared the scrutiny the papers have come under by scientific journals to a “targeted assassination”. He also stood by his claim that there is no “available evidence” that vaccines are “safe and effective”, alleging his assessment relied on hundreds of other articles, reviews, “and trial documents.
Kennedy co-wrote the book Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak with Hooker, the first author on the Sage study that is now under investigation. That paper served as a crucial pillar in chapter 2 of the book, in which he and Kennedy attempted to show that vaccinated children have higher rates of health problems such as asthma, developmental delays and gastrointestinal disorders.”
“The book also revealed insights into how the paper got published, noting that five medical journals rejected the paper outright before Sage considered it. It also said Sage had trouble finding researchers willing to review it, and the peer review process took 11 months to complete with multiple rounds of revisions.
Kennedy and Hooker worked together for years when Kennedy was leading the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, where Hooker now holds the title “chief scientific officer”.
An HHS spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether Kennedy would update his book.
Sage Open Medicine, the journal that published the paper, attached an expression of concern to it on 18 May, several weeks after the Guardian first inquired about a detailed complaint emailed to the journal in January 2025. It says the paper is under investigation.
The complaint was submitted to Sage anonymously by a pediatrician and scientist who shared it with the Guardian on condition of anonymity because they said they had been harassed in the past by supporters of the anti-vaccine movement. The doctor said they made the complaint – and then alerted the Guardian to it more than a year later – because they have seen how “such studies have scared parents out of vaccinating their children.
Hooker did not respond to emails seeking comments. Miller said in an email the investigation had to do with what he said were false allegations that the data came from another source and was not disclosed. He said the expression of concern was not about its methodology or findings.
“I am not concerned about this investigation because the aspersions are false,” Miller said.
Sage said it would not comment on specifics during the investigation.
“A decision on the paper will be made once all relevant information has been reviewed and the authors have had an opportunity to respond to the concerns raised,” a spokesperson said.””
Excerpt From
“Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policy changes facing new scrutiny”
Michelle R Smith
The Guardian
https://apple.news/AT8aeR2MJSIimY3XIonvaGA
This material may be protected by copyright.
My comments:
Kennedy & Hooker are both well known for academic dishonesty including: fabricating “data”, excluding authoritative studies which refute their unfounded claims, fabricating statements which are not factual and then attributing those false statements to well known medical & scientific authorities, and making wild claims with no supporting evidence.
Siri’s statement that “there is no available evidence that vaccines are safe and effective” is patently FALSE and dangerous—even DEADLY. And Siri has no valid credentials, experience or training to even opine such an obvious falsehood.
There is decades of evidence to the contrary and ZERO evidence to back up his claim that hundreds of articles, reviews, and trial documents support his false claim.
Kennedy’s false claims about vaccines fueled the deadly measles outbreaks in Samoa and Tonga as well as his mismanagement of the Texas measles outbreak which resulted in two pediatric deaths and another young adult death in a nearby state. And that’s not all—Kennedy mismanaged that outbreak by failing to mount the correct response with the full resources available to him as the head of HHS. He did not urge immediate efforts to vaccinate the large number of children with the readily available, inexpensive, highly effective, and SAFE MMR vaccine. He did not engage with the leaders of the Mennonite community to recommend immediate vaccination; instead he pushed an ineffective and potentially DEADLY regimen of “chicken soup, cod liver oil, and vitamin A supplements” which resulted in multiple children presenting to Children’s Hospitals with liver dysfunction & other symptoms of hypervitaminosis A—something virtually unheard of in the United States.
Kennedy refused to recommend vaccination when it could have altered the course of the outbreak and instead championed two rogue physicians as “heroes”—one of whom was actively infected with measles himself and a source of infection for the very susceptible patients he “treated” with Kennedy’s ineffective and potentially DEADLY concocted “remedy.”
After that fiasco, Kennedy plunged right into firing all the medical & scientific experts at all the agencies that fall under the HHS umbrella and replaced them with other vaccine conspiracy theorists of his personal choosing, slashed the agencies budgets, published his “MAHA” document for which he relied on misinformation and his own made up claims with no evidence to support his heretical assertions.
Kennedy is a disaster. He MUST BE REMOVED immediately, all the harmful actions he has taken as the head of HHS must be reversed, and a highly competent, properly vetted medical expert with the managerial experience to properly manage the HHS must replace him!
