Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading proponent of the widely debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, said he spoke with President Donald Trump for 20 minutes on Jan. 4, 2017. | AP Photo RFK Jr. says Trump still wants 'vaccine safety commission'

President Donald Trump remains committed to investigating a link between vaccines and autism, and his staff are still in contact with environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about leading a “vaccine safety commission” to investigate the issue, Kennedy told reporters Wednesday.

Kennedy, in his first comments on the proposed commission since meeting with Trump on Jan. 10, said he had met “many times” with members of the transition team and Trump staff since December, and they have been “trading documents about what the commission would look like.”


Kennedy, a leading proponent of the widely debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, said he spoke with Trump for 20 minutes on Jan. 4 and an hour with him at Trump Tower on Jan. 10. He said everyone in the room engaged in that discussion, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump, who has long said he suspected vaccines caused autism, told Kennedy that he had five friends whose kids had “changed” after receiving vaccines, and “said he wanted to make sure we had the safest vaccines and a regulatory process with integrity."

Kennedy made the comments at a news conference in Washington alongside actor Robert DeNiro, who's also questioned vaccine safety. The pair offered a $100,000 award to anyone who could point to a study showing that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal was safe to vaccinate children and pregnant women.

However, thimerosal was removed from most pediatric vaccines by 2001. Autism diagnosis rates continued to increase for children born after that.

Kennedy said Trump staffers, following his high-profile meeting with Trump, originally urged him to talk about the commission, but they called that evening to say they had “gotten out over our skis” and had to give a more ambiguous statement about Trump’s plans. However, Kennedy said he has been contacted twice since that meeting and “they say they are still going forward with it.”

“The president told me, 'I know the pharma industry is going to cause an uproar about this, and try to make me back down, and I’m not going to back down,’” Kennedy said. “’They tried during the campaign and I didn’t back down and I’m not going to back down.'"

The commission would be made up of “Americans of the highest integrity” who had not previously taken a position on the vaccine safety issue, Kennedy said. They might include corporate CEOs and “doctors on television,” he said. The commission would investigate CDC’s handling of vaccine safety and conflicts of interest at the agency.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump continues to show an interest in the autism issue. At a meeting with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and teachers on Tuesday, he spoke of a “tremendous increase” in autism diagnoses. “It’s such an incredible — it’s really a horrible thing to watch."

Scientists are unsure whether autism has actually increased in recent decades or is just better diagnosed. A number of federal agencies already oversee vaccine safety.