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.
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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.
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.
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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”.
