Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has advised new parents to research vaccines recommended for their children, as he also disclosed that health officials are looking into how some children start experiencing symptoms of autism shortly after vaccination.
During an April 28 town hall with Phil McGraw, also known as Dr. Phil, a mother asked Kennedy what his advice would be to new mothers with regard to vaccines.
“I would say that we live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research,” Kennedy said.
“You research the baby stroller, you research the foods that they’re getting, and you need to research the medicines that they’re taking as well.”
Kennedy, who heads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said before becoming health secretary that no vaccines are safe.
During his confirmation hearings, he described himself as “pro-safety” and not “anti-vaccine.”
“I believe vaccines have saved millions of lives and play a critical role in health care,” he said at one point.
About one-third of respondents to a Gallup survey in 2021 said that they do their own research when their doctor gives them important medical advice.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of HHS, currently recommends that children receive 12 vaccine doses in their first four months of life, and dozens more before they become adults. Many of the vaccines are required to attend school.
The CDC’s last report on the four required vaccinations found that coverage declined between the 2019–2020 and 2022–2023 school years, while the exemption rate increased.
Additionally, just 13 percent of children have received the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC data.
Kennedy confirmed during the town hall that he’s considering removing COVID-19 vaccines from the childhood vaccination schedule.
“We’re seeing a lot of adverse events from the vaccine—particularly in children—myocarditis, pericarditis, even strokes. ... American people are trusting us to make a good risk-benefit judgment when we recommend these products, and we need to go back and look at that recommendation,” he said.
Kennedy also said that officials are examining whether there is a link between autism and vaccines.
A woman asked Kennedy to explain how the ingredients in the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause inflammation of the brain and autism.
“We’re in the process of researching all those questions. That’s something—because it’s so often reported by parents and physicians, that chain of events, where somebody ... goes in for their 16-month or wellness visit, and they get the MMR and maybe a number of other vaccines at the same time,” Kennedy said.
“Many of them, many of the parents have reported that their kid, that their child developed autism immediately after the vaccine—so that’s something that we’re looking at right now.”
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has identified some cases of vaccine-induced brain injuries, and some vaccine experts have said there’s evidence that vaccines can cause autism. Others have said there is no link. The CDC states on its website that studies “show that vaccines are not associated with ASD,” or autism spectrum disorder.
The rate of autism, a disorder whose symptoms include difficulty learning, has been increasing in recent years. Officials said in April that the rate was up to one in 31 children, and Kennedy has vowed to identify the causes.
Kennedy on April 28 also reiterated his stance that health officials recommend receipt of the MMR vaccine to lower the risk of contracting measles, amid several outbreaks in the United States. However, he also said that the MMR vaccine has problems and that officials are studying it.
“The problem is really with the mumps portion of the vaccine and the combination, and it was never safety-tested—that combination was never safety-tested,” Kennedy said.
“And people just assume that if three separate vaccines were safe, and when you combine them, they would also be safe. But we now know there’s some viral interference and the combination vaccine seemed to be linked to a lot of adverse events that they were not getting from the separate vaccines.”
The CDC’s website states that the MMR vaccine typically protects people against measles and rubella for life, “but immunity against mumps may decrease over time.”
Possible side effects include a mild rash and high fever that could cause a seizure.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, associate chief of the University of California, San Francisco’s Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, told The Epoch Times in an email that the MMR vaccine does work for mumps.
“The vaccine is safe and efficacious,” she said, encouraging parents to take their children to receive the shot.
