Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked Toxicology Reports to explain why it removed a 2021 paper analyzing VAERS reports of sudden infant deaths after vaccination.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seeking answers from a scientific journal after it removed a 2021 paper that examined reports of sudden infant deaths following vaccination.
Kennedy sent a letter Thursday to Lawrence H. Lash, editor of Toxicology Reports, asking the journal to explain how it decided to remove the paper, The Hill reported.
The removed study, titled “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature,” was taken down by the journal’s publisher, Elsevier. The paper was written by Neil Z. Miller, who describes himself as a medical research journalist and has written extensively questioning vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Kennedy said journal retractions and removals can be justified when research is shown to be flawed, but he argued that such decisions should be accompanied by clear public explanations.
“As you may know, research integrity and academic freedom have been important issues to me for decades in my private career and continue to be important to me in government service,” Kennedy wrote.
In the letter, Kennedy asked Toxicology Reports to provide details about the process behind the removal. He requested information on how the decision was made, what experts were consulted during the review and what criteria were used to discredit the study. He asked the journal to respond by June 25.
The paper received renewed attention after attorney Aaron Siri cited it during a presentation to a federal vaccine panel. That panel later approved changes to the childhood immunization schedule. A federal judge has since blocked both the schedule changes and the panel’s actions.
Elsevier said the study’s conclusions were not supported by its methodology. In a removal notice, the publisher pointed to limitations of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as VAERS.
VAERS is a passive reporting system that collects reports of health events occurring after vaccination. Reports submitted to the database do not by themselves establish that a vaccine caused the event.
Elsevier said the paper’s conclusions could not be supported by the data and methods used, and the publisher cited the potential implications for medical practice. The publisher also noted that Miller disputes the removal and disagrees with the reasons given.
Miller’s paper concluded that reports of sudden infant deaths following vaccination were statistically significant. However, the study also stated that it did not prove an association between vaccines and sudden infant death.
Kennedy’s request places the journal’s removal process under federal scrutiny as debate continues over vaccine research, scientific transparency and how journals should handle disputed studies involving public health.
Original article
Comments