Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, called for an investigation into the safety of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines. Kennedy stated, “You wonder why a whole generation of children is allergic to stuff. It’s because we’re inducing allergies, pumping them full of aluminum.” He has asked the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to examine this issue.
Aluminum adjuvants have been used in vaccines since the 1920s to boost immune responses. Seven vaccines currently contain aluminum salts as adjuvants: DTaP, pneumococcal, meningococcal, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and HPV. According to experts, these vaccines would not be as effective without these components.
Kennedy referenced a journal article by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which analyzed data from 326,991 children using the Vaccine Safety Datalink. The study compared the amount of aluminum received in vaccines with cases of eczema and asthma among children. The results showed that children with eczema received 4.07 mg of aluminum while those without eczema received 3.98 mg. The study found a positive association between vaccine-associated aluminum exposure and persistent asthma in both groups.
However, the authors included a cautionary note: “While recognizing the small effect sizes identified and the potential for residual confounding, additional investigation of this hypothesis appears warranted.” They acknowledged that their analysis might not account for all external variables. When limiting their analysis to fully immunized or breastfed children only, they found no significant link between aluminum exposure and asthma development. Furthermore, they could not show a dose-response relationship for aluminum exposure in either group and did not consider other sources of aluminum such as formula or food.
Following this CDC study’s suggestion for further research, Danish investigators conducted a nationwide cohort study over 23 years involving more than 1.2 million children. Their findings indicated no association between aluminum received from vaccines and childhood asthma risk (https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M24-0617).
