Trump taps vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to launch review

Vaccination skeptic Robert F.Kennedy Jr. says he will oversee a presidential panel to reviewvaccine safety and science at the request of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in a move likely to reignite debatedespite now-debunked research that tied childhood immunizationsto autism.

"President-elect Trump has some doubts about the currentvaccine policy, and he has questions about it," Kennedy, who hasraised questions about the safety of vaccines, told reportersfollowing a meeting with Trump in New York on Tuesday. "Heasked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientificintegrity. I said I would."

However, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks later told Reutersthat, while the president-elect was exploring the possibility offorming a committee on autism, "no decisions have been made atthis time."

Kennedy, an environmentalist and lawyer, is the son of thelate U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and the nephewof assassinated Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

• Vaccine-wary parents worry public health officials

Vaccine experts decried the appointment of a vocal vaccineskeptic to explore the safety of vaccines and their purportedlink with autism, an association raised by a paper published in The Lancet in 1998 that claimed to find a connection between themeasles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

That paper has been debunked, and The Lancet withdrew thestudy. Since then, numerous studies have affirmed the safety ofthe vaccine, most recently including a study of 100,000 childrenconsidered at high risk of developing autism.

"The concerns of public health officials and pediatriciansand family doctors regarding the Trump administration and its
attitude toward vaccines have just been reinforced," said Dr.William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at VanderbiltUniversity School of Medicine, who advises the federal panelthat sets U.S. vaccine policy.

Schaffner said Kennedy has "raised issues that have beensettled securely and completely by good science, and 80,000pediatricians, many family doctors and the World HealthOrganization all reinforce the current recommended childhoodimmunization schedule. They are safe and they are effective."

Nevertheless, concerns have persisted over a possible linkbetween vaccines and autism spectrum disorder, a range ofsymptoms that often includes difficulties with communication andsocial interaction.

Dr. Kumanan Wilson, a public health researcher at The Ottawa Hospital,said vaccine proponentswill now need to find a better way to address those concerns.

"Even if it doesn't change policy, it could have a huge impact on public confidence in vaccines. You only need to undermine vaccinations by five or 10 per cent to have a break in herd immunity," said Wilson.

The American Academy of Pediatrics quickly released a statement saying, "Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives."

Daniel Johnson, an expert in pediatric infectious disease atUniversity of Chicago Medicine, said he thought yet anotherinvestigation into vaccine safety was a waste of public money.

"There's already many systems in place to provide oversight,to record data, which is constantly being reviewed by many ingovernment and the scientific community. There is no need forstill yet another system for doing this," Johnson said.

He said he is "very concerned" that parents may delaygetting their children vaccinated as they await the outcome ofthis panel, which could result in "increased harm, illness andpotentially death" of children from diseases that could beprevented by vaccines.