Trump and Vaccine Safety: Here’s What RFK Jr. Has Said About Autism

Donald Trump may create a committee on autism, his transition team said Tuesday, after vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Trump had asked him to lead a panel on immunization safety in a meeting at Trump Tower in New York. The Trump team said the president-elect had “enjoyed his discussion” with Kennedy but had made no decisions on the matter.

Kennedy, son of the late U.S. senator, attorney general, and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has sought to link childhood vaccinations to autism, focusing on the preservative thimerosal, which contains mercury and was once widely used in vaccines. There is no such link, according to a broad scientific consensus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, has said “there is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the small doses of thimerosal preservative in influenza vaccines.”