President Donald Trump is reportedly pushing Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pursue cutting childhood vaccines — something the commander-in-chief has brought attention to throughout his second term — according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The outlet cited people “familiar with the matter,” who asserted that Trump asked Kennedy in May “why he wasn’t doing more to probe the alleged connection between vaccines and autism.” The report claims Kennedy was “taken aback,” as he had supposedly been instructed to cool it on vaccines ahead of the midterm elections. That sentiment was contradicted by Trump’s call for Kennedy to prioritize it, per this report.
“The president steers nearly every conversation with his health secretary back to the issue, some of the people said,” WSJ reported, adding that Trump, specifically, wants Kennedy to reduce the number of vaccines for children, ultimately updating the federal guidance. This goal is connected to Trump’s determination to see the autism rate, which has grown exponentially in the past 25 years, drop among children. As of 2020, the autism rate among 8-year-olds was 1 in 36, and it has since gotten worse. Last year, Kennedy announced a series of studies to help identify “precisely what environmental toxins” are causing autism, noting that the rate rose to 1 in 31 children having autism.
The epidemic is real,” Kennedy said at the time.
“Instead of listening to this canard of epidemic denial, all you have to do is start reading a little science, because the answer is very clear, and this is catastrophic for our country,” Kennedy continued, adding, “This is added to already astronomical healthcare costs. And then there’s an individual injury. These are kids that — this is a preventable disease. We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics.”
All the while, as leftists criticize Kennedy for asking questions about vaccines, he has made it clear that he simply wants the public to have “good information.”
In September, Trump made waves by holding a press conference with health officials in which the president warned pregnant women against using acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol, during pregnancy due to a “very increased risk of autism.”
“I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don’t take vaccines and don’t take any pills that have no autism. That have no autism. Does that tell you something? That’s currently, is that a correct statement by the way?” Trump said.
“There are some studies that suggest that. Yeah, with the Amish for example,” Kennedy said.
Trump said he is a supporter of vaccines but wishes the establishment media and others would be more open-minded to the possibilities that some may be harmful.
Last year, under the leadership of Trump, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed the coronavirus vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
That same year, Kennedy announced the removal of a mercury-based preservative found in flu shots in the U.S.
The current childhood vaccine schedule has infants receiving over a dozen doses of various shots in the first six months of their life. If the annual flu shot and coronavirus jab are included, children would be getting upwards of 72 injections by the time they are 18.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order “to acknowledge a recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) scientific assessment on childhood vaccines as a guiding resource for the Federal Government.”
