The Health Secretary also said his department is studying how vaccines can cause autism.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised new parents to study vaccines recommended for their children. It also revealed that health officials are considering they are beginning to experience symptoms of autism right after receiving the vaccine.
“We live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is doing your own research,” Kennedy said. “You need to study strollers, study the food they get, and also study the medications they are taking.”
Kennedy, who heads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said the vaccine is not safe before becoming health secretary. During the confirmation hearing, he described himself as “professional safety” rather than “anti-vaccine.” “I think vaccines save millions of lives and play an important role in health care,” he said at one point.
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Kennedy confirmed at City Hall that he is considering removing the Covid-19 vaccine from his childhood vaccination schedule.
“We see a lot of adverse events from vaccines — especially in children — fasciitis, pericarditis, and even stroke… Americans trust us to make good risk-benefit judgments when recommending these products.
He also said authorities are looking into the link between autism and the vaccine.
A woman asked Kennedy to explain how the ingredients in the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine cause inflammation in the brain and autism.
“We’re in the process of studying all these questions. It’s something. It’s been reported frequently by parents and doctors, so a chain of events where someone takes part in a 16-month or wellness visit will get MMR and many other vaccines at the same time,” Kennedy said.
“Many of them, many parents, have reported to their children that their child developed autism right after the vaccine, which is what we’re seeing now.”
Kennedy reiterated his stance on Monday that health officials would recommend receiving the MMR vaccine to reduce the risk of contracting measles amid several outbreaks in the United States. He also said there is a problem with the MMR vaccine and officials are studying it.
“The problem was actually the mumps part in combination with vaccines, and safety testing was never safe. “And people assume that three separate vaccines are safe and that combining them is safe. But we now have some viral interference and the combination of vaccines seemed to be related to a number of adverse events that they don’t get from separate vaccines.”
Possible side effects include mild rashes and high fevers that can cause seizures.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, deputy chief of the HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told her in the Epoch era in an email that the MMR vaccine is working for mumps.
“The vaccine is safe and effective,” she said.
