The president-elect may create autism commission, Trump spokeswoman said, which is at odds with vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy’s announcement

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent skeptic regarding the use of vaccines, said Donald Trump had asked him to chair a commission on vaccination safety – although the Trump team later denied it, saying instead the administration may create a commission on autism.

“President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policies and he has questions about it,” said Kennedy, speaking with reporters after a meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower on Tuesday.

“His opinion doesn’t matter but the science does matter, and we ought to be reading the science and we ought to be debating the science,” said Kennedy, the son of the late attorney general Robert Kennedy and nephew of late president John F Kennedy.



After asking the Trump transition team to confirm the commission on vaccine safety, Hope Hicks, the presidential transition national spokeswoman, played down Kennedy’s claims.

“The president-elect is exploring the possibility of forming a commission on autism, which affects so many families; however no decisions have been made at this time,” she said in a statement.

Childhood vaccines have been falsely linked to autism in recent years, despite multiple scientific studies proving that incorrect.



“The president-elect looks forward to continuing the discussion about all aspects of autism with many groups and individuals,” added Hicks.

During a 2015 Republican debate, Trump claimed that a child of some employees of his had become autistic after getting vaccinated.

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“People that work for me, just the other day, two years old, beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic,” Trump said in September 2015.

According to Kennedy, an environmental activist, radio host and attorney who has written for the Guardian, Trump has created a commission “on vaccine safety and scientific integrity” and asked him to chair it.

“Everybody ought to be able to be assured that the vaccines that we have – he’s very pro-vaccine, as am I – but they’re as safe as they possibly can be,” Kennedy added.



Although Kennedy calls himself “pro-vaccine”, he has pushed hard against the use of thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines made from mercury, launching a group called the World Mercury Project, backed by anti-vaxxers. He advocates that parents should choose whether their children are vaccinated.

In 2014, he edited a book titled Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak: The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury – a Known Neurotoxin – from Vaccines.



In 2015, he said Congress was stalling on investigating links between autism and the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine because it was scared of Big Pharma, a trillion-dollar industry and the biggest employer of lobbyists.

When questioned what his father and uncle – leading lights in the 1960s Democratic party – would make of Trump as president, Kennedy said on Tuesday that Trump “can be any kind of president he wants to be”.

“He probably comes into office less encumbered by ideology or obligations than anybody that has been in political office or won the presidency,” Kennedy said.