'Somebody has to find out': Trump says RFK Jr. will look at why autism is on the rise
WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump suggested Sunday he would task Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with looking into the health effects of vaccines and why autism diagnoses are on the rise in America.
“I think somebody has to find out,” Trump said during an interview on "Meet the Press."
Kennedy, who comes from one of America’s most prominent political families, is known for his anti-vaccine beliefs and has repeatedly spread false or misleading claims regarding vaccines, fluoride and other topics. He gained national prominence in part because of his opposition to the childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Kennedy has pushed debunked claims that the vaccine was linked to autism, among other conspiracy theories.
Trump, who for years was a vaccine skeptic himself, said during the interview that he is not opposed to vaccines.
“Vaccines are incredible, but maybe some aren’t,” he said. “And if they aren’t, we have to find out.”
Trump cited an increase in the number of documented autism cases in recent years. “Something is going on,” he said. “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.”
Kennedy, he said, is “not looking to, you know, reinvent the wheel. But when you look at the numbers, we really don’t have a very healthy country.”
Who is RFK JR.? Trump's pick for health agencies has history of anti-vax views.
The myth that autism is linked to vaccines stems mostly from a repeatedly debunked 1998 research paper authored by former British physician Andrew Wakefield and 12 colleagues, most of whom later retracted the conclusion.
The paper claimed there was a connection between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism, a notion refuted again by a large-scale study of more than 650,000 children in Denmark published in 2019.
The reported autism rate in the U.S. has indeed increased in recent decades, rising from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 children in 2020, according to the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, a program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But public health experts say the increase is likely because of changes in the definition of autism, which includes more people than previous definitions, and better efforts to diagnose the disorder.
Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz
Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump: RFK Jr. may study discredited link between autism, vaccines