Trump officials want to pull aluminum from vaccines. Public health experts say that move defies science.
Trump administration health officials plan to remove a vaccine ingredient that’s been safely in use for decades, aluminum.
The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has reduced some vaccine access. The agency scaled back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, approved COVID-19 vaccines for fewer people and aimed to remove the preservative thimerosal from U.S. vaccines. Experts told PolitiFact scientific research did not support its removal.
During a Sept. 22 press conference in which President Donald Trump told people not to take Tylenol during pregnancy, he also mentioned another objective: “We want no aluminum in the vaccine,” he said. The administration was already in the process of removing aluminum from vaccines, he added.
About two weeks later on Oct. 8, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, announced a new working group focused on the childhood vaccine schedule. Its discussion topics include vaccine ingredient safety and “aluminum adjuvants.”
Robert Malone, an ACIP member who has opposed COVID-19 vaccines, told Axios he expected the committee would determine there was “a lot of evidence” of “issues” with aluminum in vaccines. The committee likely would vote to recategorize vaccines containing aluminum adjuvants so that people would have to discuss with their doctor before getting them, Malone told Axios.
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