President-elect Trump urged in an interview Sunday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr, his choose to steer the Division of Well being and Human Providers, would examine a debunked hyperlink between vaccines and autism.
“When you look at some of the problems, when you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong,” Trump stated on “Meet The Press.” Requested by moderator Kristen Welker if he was referring to autism, Trump stated autism charges have risen dramatically.
“I think somebody has to find out. If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism. Now you have it,” he stated.
“Autism was almost non-existent. It was, you know, one out of 100,000. And now it’s close to one out of 100 … that’s a pretty bad number,” Trump stated, including he was “open to anything” when requested if Kennedy would look into it.
“I mean, something is going on. I don’t know if it’s vaccines. Maybe it’s chlorine in the water, right? You know, people are looking at a lot of different things,” he stated.
Kennedy has spent a long time religiously selling the speculation that childhood vaccines have led to a rise in autism and persistent sicknesses, regardless of research repeatedly displaying in any other case.
Autism diagnoses have been rising, although Trump misstated the extent of the rise. About one in 36 kids now have a analysis of autism spectrum dysfunction (ASD), in keeping with estimates from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, in comparison with about one in 150 in 2000. However consultants have attributed the rise to raised consciousness of signs in kids and altering standards to diagnose ASD in youngsters.
Kennedy has argued he isn’t anti-vaccine however thinks that childhood pictures aren’t secure and that the federal government hasn’t performed sufficient research to show in any other case.
In keeping with the CDC, commonplace childhood vaccines prevented 1.3 million untimely deaths and 32 million hospitalizations between 1994 and 2023.
The debunked concept connecting autism and childhood vaccines first garnered main consideration in 1998, when a paper printed in a British medical journal presupposed to discover a hyperlink between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
The research, which was based mostly on solely 12 kids, was finally retracted. A panel concluded creator Andrew Wakefield violated fundamental analysis ethics guidelines and subjected the youngsters in his research to unnecessary invasive checks for which he didn’t have approval. Wakefield was then banned from training medication in Britain.
Trump’s feedback counsel help for Kennedy’s viewpoint, although he was cautious to notice he helps the advantages of sure vaccines.
When Welker requested if he “wanted see childhood vaccines eliminated,” Trump responded: “If they’re dangerous for the children.”
“I’m not in opposition to vaccines. The polio vaccine is the best factor,” Trump stated. “If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they’re going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are — certain vaccines — are incredible. But maybe some aren’t. And if they aren’t, we have to find out.”
