Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policies changes facing new scrutiny

A man gets Covid and flu vaccine shots in Boston on 7 January 2026. Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A man gets Covid and flu vaccine shots in Boston on 7 January 2026. Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policies changes facing new scrutiny Scientists praise moves to investigate, retract or remove controversial studies. The authors stand by their work Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them. In some cases, the actions occurred years after scientists first raised alarms about the studies’ scientific merits. Robert F Kennedy Jr , the US health secretary who has been a leader in the anti-vaccine movement for decades, relied on two of the studies that are now facing scrutiny for a 2023 book he co-wrote that argued unvaccinated children were healthier than children who had been vaccinated. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited one of the papers when it changed its long-held position that vaccines do not cause autism, cutting against the scientific consensus . And all three papers were cited by an anti-vaccine lawyer who called for changes to the childhood immunization schedule before an influential federal vaccine advisory panel. It was not clear why the journals have not acted until now. Scientists who previously criticized the papers said the actions are a positive step, as public health officials and physicians across the US are reporting a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles . They argue that the three studies have been used by the anti-vaccine movement to plant seeds of doubt with parents, eroding confidence in the safety of life-saving vaccines. “People and organizations intent on spreading vaccine misinformation have been very savvy in their misuse of scientific terms, such as ‘gold-standard science’”, and publishing flawed studies to give their claims the appearance of credibility and confuse the public, said Dr Karina Top, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. “These papers are poor science, it appears the authors are making the data fit their hypothesis that vaccines are harmful.” The three papers shared a common theme: the idea that vaccinated children had a greater risk of health problems than unvaccinated children. But all three have been roundly criticized for using poor methodologies and analyses. One, by Neil Z Miller, was published in 2021 in Toxicology Reports and suggested a link between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Another, published in 2020 by Sage Open Medicine and co-authored by Miller and Brian S Hooker, suggested vaccinated children had higher rates of certain health problems like de