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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Concerned About Aluminum in Vaccines? Here's What the Research Shows
Real-world data from 1.2 million children offers strong reassurance. If you've ever paused at a vaccine ingredient list or felt confused while reading a vaccine insert, you're not alone. One ingredient that often sparks questions is aluminum, specifically aluminum salts used in some vaccines to help the immune system respond more effectively. But does the aluminum in vaccines pose a real risk to children's health? A new study out of Denmark, which tracked more than 1.2 million children over 24 years, offers strong reassurance: aluminum exposure from routine childhood vaccines was not linked to higher rates of autism, ADHD, asthma, or autoimmune disease. What is aluminum doing in vaccines? Aluminum salts aren't preservatives. They're adjuvants, something that helps certain vaccines work better by boosting the immune response. They've been used safely in childhood vaccines for decades. A real-world study with real-world relevance The concern about aluminum in vaccines isn't new. It's been used safely for decades in many non-live vaccines, like DTaP and Hib, to help the immune system respond better. The amount a child gets can vary a bit depending on which brand and version of a vaccine is used. That natural variation is actually what made this study possible. Researchers followed over 1.2 million children, tracking how much aluminum each child received from vaccines by age 2 (ranging from 0 to 4.5 mg total). Then, they followed up through age 5, and for some age 8, to see whether aluminum exposure was linked to (50 different conditions): Autoimmune disorders like type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and celiac disease Allergic conditions like asthma and eczema Neurodevelopmental diagnoses like autism and ADHD So, what did they find? Even when kids received more aluminum, their rates of these conditions didn't go up. In fact, kids who received more aluminum had slightly lower rates of some diagnoses, like autism and ADHD. That doesn't mean aluminum protects against anything. It just that it's not harmful at the levels used in childhood vaccines. And here's a key point: for many of the outcomes studied, the data were strong enough to rule out even small or moderate increases in risk. What about concerns or limitations? Some people will likely still have concerns about the study, and it's worth being transparent about the questions that come up, even when the data is strong. No study is perfect or 100% generalizable. Here's what critics might argue, and some thoughts on rationale. It's not a randomized controlled trial (RCT). True, it's an observational study, not the 'gold standard' for proving causality. But an RCT would mean intentionally withholding vaccines from children, which would be unethical. This study used naturally occurring differences in vaccine aluminum exposure, which is the next best, and most ethical, option. Some confounders might have been missed. Always a possibility. But, the study controlled for a lot: income, preterm birth, birthweight, maternal conditions, and more. But no study can control for everything. Still, the patterns were consistent across subgroups and time periods, which helps strengthen confidence in the results. Diagnoses came from health registries, not medical record review. That's true, but Denmark's health registries are considered high quality, and any misdiagnoses or under-reporting would likely be spread evenly across all groups, meaning it wouldn't skew the results. Denmark isn't the U.S. That's fair. But both countries vaccinate against the same diseases, using many of the same vaccine components, just with slightly different schedules and formulations. The underlying science and biologic principles are the same. What this study actually adds This study doesn't tell us that aluminum is good. It doesn't claim to end the conversation forever. But here's what it does offer: Reassurance grounded in data, not dismissal. Parents have asked smart questions for years. This isn't about 'just trust us,' it's about finally having large-scale, high-quality data to help answer those questions with clarity and care. Real-world relevance. This isn't a theoretical model or a lab experiment. It's 1.2 million real children, followed over 24 years, across a variety of vaccine exposures, and the results were consistent. Stronger evidence than ever before. While past studies raised concerns based on small samples or extreme exposures, this one helps fill a major gap: what happens when kids get routine aluminum-containing vaccines, as recommended, in actual pediatric care settings? The answer: no increased risk for autism, ADHD, allergies, or autoimmune conditions. Here's what's key to understand: This is exactly why large, real-world cohort studies, like the new Danish one, matter so much. They track actual vaccine use, actual outcomes, and actual kids. Bottom line And maybe most importantly? This keeps the focus where it belongs: informed, compassionate decision-making. Not panic. Not pressure. Not shame. If you've ever paused at a vaccine ingredient list, wondered about aluminum, or felt caught between headlines and your instincts, this study is for you. It doesn't shut the door on questions. But it opens the door wider for answers that are actually backed by evidence. Looking for more details on the study, concerns about past research, and how aluminum in vaccines differs from other exposures? You'll find it all in this PedsDocTalk Newsletter.
Atlantic
23-07-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
RFK Jr.'s Vaccine-Safety Investigator Has Already Disqualified Himself
Mark and David Geier were a father-and-son team of researchers who operated on the fringes of the scientific establishment. They were known for promoting a controversial treatment for autism, and for publishing papers on the purported harms of vaccines that experts dismissed as junk science. In 2004, the CDC accused them of violating research protocols. In 2012, the state of Maryland sanctioned them. And in 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped one of them to investigate alleged wrongdoing in a crucial CDC database. For years, Kennedy has claimed that the database, which tracks adverse reactions to immunizations and is known as the Vaccine Safety Datalink, once contained vital information about vaccine safety—and that this information has been withheld from the public, scrubbed from the record, or otherwise manipulated. He wants David Geier to investigate it because he and his late father, a physician, studied it in the early 2000s, after they applied through a CDC program that allows researchers outside the government to access certain data sets. When the Geiers were first allowed into this trove of millions of anonymized health records, they were supposed to be carrying out a safety study of the DTaP vaccine. But the CDC found that they were instead conducting unauthorized analyses to hunt for a link between the vaccine and autism, and risked breaching patients' confidentiality in the process; the agency revoked their access. (At the time, the Geiers disputed the charge that they had endangered anyone's personal information, writing in a 2004 letter to an institutional-review-board administrator that they held the 'utmost regard' for patient confidentiality.) Even after they were ousted, the Geiers used information they'd apparently held on to from that database to publish a series of scientific papers advancing the widely discredited theory that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once common in childhood vaccines, is linked to autism, among other conditions. Researchers in the field have long criticized the Geiers' methodology as sloppy, and noted that their conclusions are at odds with those of numerous higher-quality studies. Since March, when The Washington Post reported that David Geier had been brought into the Department of Health and Human Services, his and his father's work has come under renewed scrutiny. One scientist found that several of their papers—based on information from the very CDC database that Kennedy has tasked Geier with investigating—contain a statistical error so fundamental that it casts doubt on Geier's abilities and intentions in assessing data. That scientist and another I spoke with couldn't believe that some of Geier's work had ever been published in the first place. David Geier is currently listed as a senior data analyst in HHS's staff directory, though what exactly he's doing for the department is unclear. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Geier is using his new position to continue his search for a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. New York magazine floated the possibility that he will attempt to repeat a study from the early 2000s that anti-vaccine activists cite as proof that inoculations harm developing brains. Kennedy has denied that Geier is running the agency's project to find out what causes autism, and testified that he has instead been hired by a contractor to determine whether information disappeared from the database. (Mark Geier died in March, and David Geier did not respond to interview requests. Reached for comment, an HHS spokesperson pointed to a lengthy X post by Kennedy in which he defends Geier's record and notes his 'extensive background as a research scientist.') Under any other administration, Geier's history would almost certainly have disqualified him from any role at HHS. In the mid-2000s, after Mark Geier had established a profitable sideline of testifying as an expert witness in lawsuits that alleged injury from vaccines, the father and son claimed to have discovered a method of treating autism. What they touted as a miracle drug was Lupron, a testosterone-suppressing medication used in many cases of premature puberty. They ran a laboratory out of the basement of their Maryland home and administered the drug to children based on their unfounded theory, advertising their supposed breakthrough on the autism-conference circuit. In 2012, Mark, a physician, was stripped of his license, and David was sanctioned for practicing medicine without one. (The Geiers sued the Maryland Board of Physicians in 2012 for releasing information about medications Mark Geier had prescribed to family members. They were awarded a total of nearly $5 million for the invasion of their privacy and attorneys' fees, but that judgment was reversed after a different court ruled that Maryland Board of Physicians members were immune from such claims.) The Geiers' work is well known among autism researchers, though not well respected. 'They were seen as not representing the best of autism science,' Craig Newschaffer, a Penn State scientist who has studied how genetics and environmental factors contribute to autism, told me, putting it more gently than others I spoke with. Marie McCormick met the Geiers when she chaired a 2004 review of immunization safety by the Institute of Medicine (now known as the National Academy of Medicine), a nonprofit group that advises the federal government. McCormick, now an emeritus professor at Harvard's School of Public Health, recalled that the Geiers' presentation had 'really made no sense': It was a slideshow of vaccine vials with labels indicating that they contained mercury, but it didn't have much else in the way of evidence. The committee's report identified a host of 'serious methodological flaws' in the Geiers' research, such as a failure to explain how they had sorted their subjects into groups. The Geiers' work from the 2010s likewise has such glaring flaws that the experts I spoke with were baffled as to how the studies had been published at all. Jeffrey Morris, a biostatistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, recently examined a series of papers on which the Geiers were authors that used data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink. One representative 2017 study purportedly showed that the hepatitis B vaccine was associated with an increased risk of autism. Morris quickly noticed that the paper's approach rendered its findings meaningless. It compared a group of children with autism to a control group of children without the diagnosis, to see how vaccination rates differed between the two. But these groups of children also differed in another crucial way: The children diagnosed with autism were born during the eight-year span from 1991 to 1998, whereas the control group—children not diagnosed with autism—were born in 1991 or 1992. That's more than a minor inconsistency. In 1991, the CDC's vaccine-advisory committee recommended that all infants in the United States receive the hepatitis B vaccine, and so the percentage of vaccinated children rose steadily throughout the decade, from fewer than 10 percent to approximately 90 percent. That meant that babies born later in the '90s (who were overrepresented in the autism group) were very likely to have gotten the shot, whereas those born earlier in the decade (who were overrepresented in the control group) were not. By picking a control group in which relatively few kids would have been vaccinated, and an autistic population in which most were, the Geiers made finding a connection between immunization and autism inevitable. Using this approach, you could blame the vaccine for all manner of maladies. According to Morris, the Geiers did exactly that in at least nine papers, published from 2015 to 2018, that used data from the vaccine-safety database. One of their studies linked hep-B vaccination to childhood obesity. Others showed an association with tic disorders, emotional disturbance, and premature puberty, among other conditions, some of which rose during the '90s and early 2000s at least in part because of new diagnostic criteria and increased awareness. That likely also explains why autism rates began to climb significantly in the '90s. Many flawed scientific papers include a regrettable but understandable oversight, Morris told me, but the Geiers employed 'an absolutely invalid design that biases things so enormously that you could throw out the results of all these papers.' Newschaffer reviewed Morris's critique and told me he doesn't believe that a study with such a serious problem should have been published in the first place. 'I would characterize that as a 'miss' in the peer review,' he said. (I also contacted Dirk Schaumlöffel, the editor in chief of the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, which published the Geiers' paper connecting the hep-B vaccine to autism. He took issue with Morris's 'polemical allegations' and defended the paper, noting that it 'does not argue against vaccination, but merely questions the role of thimerosal.' He told me that he would prefer that the matter be debated in the pages of his journal.) If David Geier were merely an independent researcher publishing in lesser-known journals, his errors, although egregious, would be of little more than academic concern. But his influence on Kennedy runs deep. In 2005, Kennedy highlighted the Geiers' research in an essay outlining how he'd come to believe that thimerosal-containing vaccines could cause autism. He wrote about them again that year in 'Deadly Immunity,' an article—eventually retracted by both Salon and Rolling Stone after multiple corrections and intense criticism—that alleged that government health agencies had covered up evidence indicating that thimerosal in vaccines was to blame for the rise in autism rates. In his 2014 book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, Kennedy cites the Geiers dozens of times, portraying them as determined truth-tellers battling uncooperative government agencies—the very ones Kennedy has now been appointed to oversee. Thanks to Kennedy, Geier seemingly is being handed the keys to the same database he's proved himself unfit to study. People who are familiar with Geier's history worry that he'll use his position on the inside not to defend the truth but to resurrect thoroughly debunked claims, twisting the data to support what he and Kennedy have long believed.
Gulf Insider
02-07-2025
- Health
- Gulf Insider
RFK Jr. Alleges CDC Covered Up Vaccine Risks
It's not every day an active HHS Secretary sits down for 90 minutes straight with Tucker Carlson. But that's exactly what happened, and Kennedy instantly seized Carlson's attention with a chilling story of CDC corruption. He revealed that the health agency buried a 1999 internal study led by researcher Thomas Verstraten, which showed an alarming 1135% increase in autism risk from the hepatitis B vaccine. Kennedy said the researchers were 'shocked' by the findings. So what did they do? They covered it up, according to Kennedy. 'They got rid of all the older children essentially and just had younger children who are too young to be diagnosed [with autism].' RFK Jr. then explained the real reason why your pediatrician will kick you out of their practice for refusing vaccines. 'There's a published article out there now that says that 50% of revenues to most pediatricians come from vaccines.' It's all about the money. The higher the vaccination rate, the bigger the bonus. 'And that's why your pediatrician, if you say I want to go slow on the vaccines… will throw you out of his practice because you're now jeopardizing that bonus structure.' To the claim that the vaccine–autism link has been 'debunked,' Kennedy had a message for Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, and everyone who smugly insists on it. 'None of the vaccines given to children in the first six months of life have ever been studied for autism.' Let that sink in. He went further, revealing that the CDC actually did find a link when they studied the DTaP vaccine. But they dismissed it. Kennedy said they claimed it 'didn't count' because the data came from VAERS—the very system they use to track vaccine injuries. So when the evidence pointed to harm, they simply claimed their own system wasn't reliable enough and took no steps to fix it. The vaccine corruption didn't end there. Kennedy attested that the CDC killed off a vaccine injury reporting system that actually worked—because it worked too well. It showed that 1 in 37 vaccines caused an injury. Tucker was stunned. 'Of all vaccines?' he asked. 'Yeah,' Kennedy confirmed. RFK Jr. explained that the CDC funded a study led by researcher Ross Lazarus. It compared a sophisticated machine-counting system to VAERS. What did they find? VAERS was failing to catch over 99% of vaccine injuries. The new system also revealed that 2.6% of all vaccinations resulted in an injury. So what did the CDC do? They shut it down in 2010. And they're still using VAERS today—even though it's a completely inadequate system. But Kennedy didn't stop at old vaccine scandals. He also broke down Pfizer's own COVID vaccine trial data. That trial showed a 23% higher death rate in the vaccinated group. Pfizer gave 21,720 people the vaccine and 21,728 the placebo. One vaccinated person died of COVID. Two placebo recipients died. They used this tiny difference to claim '100% effective' based on relative risk reduction. But in absolute terms, it took 22,000 vaccinations to save one life. Over six months, 21 vaccinated participants died of all causes, compared to 17 in the placebo group—a 23.5% higher death rate. And then there's vaccine spokesperson Paul Offit, often seen on CNN and other mainstream networks. Kennedy shared an infuriating story about how he literally 'voted himself rich' on the rotavirus vaccine. While serving on the CDC's ACIP committee, Offit voted to add rotavirus vaccination to the childhood schedule—even as he was developing his own competing vaccine. He guaranteed demand for his product. The first approved rotavirus vaccine, RotaShield, was yanked from the market for causing dangerous intussusception. Offit's vaccine, RotaTeq, eventually replaced it. He and his partners later sold their rights to Merck for $186 million. As RFK Jr. said, Offit literally 'voted himself rich.' When Carlson mentioned Fauci, Kennedy revealed how Fauci funded research that helped scientists hide evidence of lab-made viruses. The technique, called 'seamless ligation,' allowed researchers to engineer viruses in a lab without leaving telltale genetic fingerprints. RFK Jr. explained: 'One of his fundees, Ralph Baric, from the University of North Carolina, developed a technique called the seamless ligation technique, which is a technique for hiding the laboratory origins of a manipulated virus.' '… normally if there's a virus manipulated, researchers can look at the DNA sequences and they can say this thing was created in a lab. Ralph Baric had developed a technique that he called the no-see technique and its technical name was seamless ligation, and it was a way of hiding evidence of human tampering.' He called it the exact opposite of what real public health work should be. Carlson cut in, saying, 'That's what you would do if you're creating viruses for biological warfare.' The conversation shifted to Trump, leading to one of the biggest highlights of the entire interview. First, Kennedy explained that Trump chose his cabinet in an unorthodox way: he wanted to see three clips of each candidate performing on TV before considering them for the job. 'One of the things with President Trump is that he really knows how to pick talent… For every one of the positions that he picked, he wanted to see three clips of them performing on TV. He's very conscious of the fact that these people are going to be out selling his program to the public,' Kennedy said. That's when Kennedy ended the interview with a bang, sharing his genuine thoughts about Trump for three straight minutes. It was one of the standout moments of the entire conversation. If you're on the fence about Trump, listen to Kennedy here. It might just change how you see him. 'I had him pegged as a narcissist, when narcissists are incapable of empathy. And he's one of the most empathetic people that I've met,' Kennedy said. 'He's immensely curious, inquisitive, and immensely knowledgeable. He's encyclopedic in certain areas that you wouldn't expect,' he continued. Kennedy added that Trump genuinely cares about soldiers who go to war, citing how Trump 'always talks about the casualties on both sides' of the Russia–Ukraine conflict. 'Whether it's vaccines or Medicaid or Medicare, he's always thinking about how this impacts the little guy. And the Democrats have him pegged as a guy who's sort of sitting in the Cabinet meeting talking about how can we make billionaires richer. He's the opposite of that. He's a genuine populist,' Kennedy said. Here's the clip. Trust me, watching this is better than reading it. There's so much more in this conversation, and it might change the way you think about vaccines forever. For the full picture, watch the entire interview below. Also Read: Why Have Any COVID-19 Vaccines, 2025?
New Indian Express
26-06-2025
- Health
- New Indian Express
India second after Nigeria on largest number of unvaccinated children: Lancet
NEW DELHI: A whopping 1.44 million children in India did not receive a single shot of any routine vaccination in 2023, a new global study published Wednesday in The Lancet said. The study also stated that India recorded the second-highest number of 'zero-dose' children—defined as those lacking access to or never reached by routine immunisation services— after Nigeria. India also stood among the eight countries, along with Nigeria and Ethiopia, where more than half of the unvaccinated children from around the world lived as of 2023, according to an analysis by the Global Burden of Disease Study Vaccine Coverage Collaborators. The report said that more than half of the 15.7 million global zero-dose children resided in just eight countries, with Nigeria topping the list with the largest number of unvaccinated children (2.5 million), followed by India (1.4 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (882,000), Ethiopia (782,000), Somalia (710,000), Sudan (627,000), Indonesia (538,000) and Brazil (452,000), thus emphasising 'persistent inequities'. In India, the Universal Immunisation Programme provides vaccination against 12 diseases, which are offered to children free of cost. The report stated that achieving coverage of 90 percent or greater for each of the life-course vaccines — all three doses of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, two measles vaccines, and the pneumococcal vaccine — is the central target for 2030. Only 18 of 204 countries have already met this target. It also said that children who had never received a routine childhood vaccine further fell by 75 percent fall, 'from 58.8 million in 1980 to 14.7 million in 2019, before the Covid-19'. 'The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges, with global rates for these vaccines declining sharply since 2020 and still not returning to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels as of 2023,' it added.
Axios
09-06-2025
- Health
- Axios
Louisiana on track for record whooping cough cases
Whooping cough is spreading faster in Louisiana than it has in more than a decade, and health officials warn that this year could set a record for cases. Why it matters: Adults need to take precautions to keep infants safe, doctors say, because they are most at risk for complications from the illness. The big picture: Louisiana has had 170 cases reported as of May 14, surpassing the number for the entire year of 2024, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. The current record of 214 cases was set in 2013. Threat level: Two babies have died in Louisiana since September, marking the state's first deaths from whooping cough, or pertussis, since 2018, LDH says. Since September, 42 people have been hospitalized, with about 70% of them younger than 12 months. So far this year, the pertussis case rate for infants in Louisiana is at least seven times higher than all other age groups, LDH says. Cases are increasing nationally as well. Health officials attribute some of the rise in cases to declining vaccination rates and waning immunity. What he's saying:"It is a horrible disease," says Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Babies really do struggle to catch their breath, and sometimes they stop breathing altogether and it's terrifying to watch." When babies are being hospitalized with whooping cough, he said it's an indicator that more adolescents and adults also have it but probably haven't been diagnosed. The babies usually get exposed because someone else in the household is coughing, he said. How it works: Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It spreads through coughing, sneezing and close contact, LDH says. Symptoms include runny nose, sneezing, intense coughing fits and post-coughing vomiting for two to three weeks. Severe cases can hinder breathing and last for months. Zoom in: Two vaccines (Tdap and DTaP) prevent serious complications, LDH says, and are available for children and adults. But protection fades over time. LDH recommends that adults get a booster shot every 10 years. Medical providers can do a nasal swab test to check if you have whooping cough. Antibiotics treat the symptoms and the spread if given early, LDH says. What to do for teens and adults: If you have a cough and are around babies, seek medical attention earlier than you would if you aren't around babies, Sharfstein encourages. Tell the doctor you live with or interact with an infant regularly, because the doctor may think differently about your cough, he said. Check your vaccine records, and get a booster if needed, he advised. For babies: "I would say a cough that doesn't look right to the parents always needs to be checked out by the doctor," Sharfstein said, especially if it is a persistent cough that's interfering with a child's ability to do normal things. He encourages parents to create a cocoon around infants by making sure everyone is vaccinated and gets tested quickly if they have a cough. Go deeper
