The Aluminum Saga Continues: Kennedy Strikes Back

By Alex Morozov

August 20, 2025

See also our Opinion out today in The Hill.

In our last our Opinion piece called “RFK Jr. is targeting aluminum in vaccines — and children could pay the price,” we revealed Kennedy’s apparent efforts to orchestrate a strategic attack on aluminum-containing vaccines. We described a recent Danish study that demonstrated no association between the amount of aluminum children received and their risk of various chronic conditions, including autism. 

This study is in the way of Kennedy’s scheme. Predictably, it was immediately attacked by Children’s Health Defense, an antivax nonprofit founded by Kennedy. 

Then Kennedy himself as a solo author published a lengthy and impassioned yet deeply technical rebuttal of the Danish paper, called “Flawed Science, Bought Conclusions: The Aluminum Vaccine Study the Media Won’t Question.” The rebuttal was published in an obscure trade publication, Trial Site News, rated as “conspiracy-propaganda” by MediaBias. 

Kennedy's rebuttal contains a multitude of scientific falsehoods that were debunked by the scientific community. To its credit, Trial Site News published Dr Hviid's response to Kennedy that I might summarize as the "adult in the room" - "Many of these [criticisms] are related to specific study design choices that are reasonable to raise and discuss, preferably in a respectful manner..."

However, a few aspects beyond the science are noteworthy. 

First, the Danish study was fundamentally quite routine - it confirmed the safety of aluminum-containing vaccines which have been in use for decades. There is no indication from HHS that any new safety concerns with these medicinal products have been identified recently. In this context, it is difficult to explain such an abrupt, fierce and personal attack by the Secretary of HHS, unless he is indeed planning to “discover” aluminum-containing vaccines as the cause of autism as we predicted in our Opinion. 

Here is Kennedy the lawyer – attacking science through intimidation and deceit, as though it was a courtroom opponent. Intimidation is a legal technique that "creates an atmosphere of fear, coercion, and uncertainty, compelling the opposing party to make concessions under duress." And attorney deceit "may take many forms, from lying to clients to concealing facts from the court."

The intensity of the attack was such that it even included a demand on the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, to “immediately retract the badly flawed study,” an unprecedented attack on an independent, non-government journal by the Secretary of HHS. The journal courageously refused.

Kennedy even attacked Denmark as a country, referring to “Gold Standard Science” as “standards that will determine with whom the United States will collaborate or do business going forward.” This is a worrisome example of the US blackmailing another country into twisting conclusions of an independent scientific study to its will. Kennedy went even further, asking for Danish laws to be broken to release the underlying data used in the publication.

This demand is reminiscent of the “quid pro quo” arrangement Trump proposed to Vladimir Zelensky in the Fall of 2019. This time, Denmark is being offered a deal too: follow Trump’s version of “Gold Standard Science” as outlined in his recent executive order, or risk losing “business and collaboration” with the US. 

Such threats with international policy implications would not be done without Trump’s approval. He appears to be in on the aluminum scheme. It appears likely that Kennedy discussed aluminum with Trump when they met in January 2017. Kennedy was already in discussions with both Exley and Shaw at that point, as they told us. And Kennedy brought up aluminum several times when he was interviewed about his meeting with Trump. 

Second, a lot of Kennedy’s statistical criticisms are similar to those recently made by James Lyons-Weiler, a long-time friend of Kennedy. Lyons-Weiler is now serving as Kennedy’s scientific advisor, Christopher Shaw, one of the founders of the aluminum toxicity field, told us recently.  According to Shaw, Lyons-Weiler recently called him and asked for his ideas for further research on toxicity of aluminum. 

On January 27, when Scott Gottlieb proposed in an interview that Kennedy may be planning to attack aluminum-containing vaccines, Lyons-Weiler responded ominously, “We tried to warn you. We are glad you are finally listening.”

Lyons-Weiler is also the owner of the scientific journal, Science, Healthcare Policy and the Law, which in January published a paper by Mawson and Jacob that Mr Kennedy cited in his confirmation hearings to support the vaccines-autism link. This paper, (which did not make its underlying data publicly available,) was of such poor quality that an external article review by the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (with NIH Director Dr Bhattacharya and FDA Commissioner Dr Makary on the editorial board) concluded that “it should be forgotten.” Yet Kennedy did not voice any methodological concerns when he brought up this paper in the Senate hearings. Such a double-standard - forgiving flawed studies that support one’s agenda, and criticising those that do not - is dangerous for any scientist, let alone for the Secretary of HHS. This is Kennedy’s vision of “Gold Standard Science” he is intimidating Denmark into adopting. 

Third, Kennedy mentions in his rebuttal “mountains of contrary literature documenting the neurotoxicity of aluminum.” He fails to mention, however, that much of this literature comes from the “aluminum family” and was sponsored by Claire Dwoskin, a long-time board member of the anti-vaccine organization National Vaccine Information Center. In 2011 she founded an aluminum-focused anti-vaccine nonprofit, Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, CMSRI which provided over 1.1 million dollars in research funding to Christopher Shaw alone, according to a CV he provided to us. Another $860,000 came to Shaw from the Luther Allyn Shourds Dean estate, described as a “private fund that supports vaccine-critical research.” 

The specific paper Kennedy cites in his rebuttal is also authored by the “aluminum family.” Among the authors is Christopher Exley. Kennedy personally offered Exley research funding, as Exley describes in his book (his institution declined the funding due to Kennedy’s antivax views). Another paper Kennedy alludes to in support of his criticisms of the Danish study lists CSMRI and Luther Allyn Shourds Dean estate among its sponsors.