Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter Monday to the editor of Toxicology Reports demanding that the journal explain its decision to retract a 2021 study that suggested a link between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome. The letter, which Kennedy posted on X, asked the journal to respond by June 25.
The journal removed the paper earlier this spring after an investigation identified “serious methodological flaws,” according to a five-paragraph notice it posted in place of the study. The publisher, Elsevier, said the decision followed “careful review and consultation with relevant experts” and that the paper’s conclusions “may pose potential risks to public health and could potentially be applied in clinical practice resulting in harm to patients.”
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law expert at UC Law San Francisco, wrote on X that if Kennedy is “trying to use his position to bully a journal, he is stepping close to violating their first amendment rights.”
Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist who has written extensively about the anti-vaccine movement, said Kennedy was “apparently using the power of his position” to pressure a private publisher. He added, “To antivaxxers, it’s free speech for me, but not for thee.”
Neil Z Miller, the paper’s author, said he did not know the letter was being sent. He told the Guardian he was grateful Kennedy was seeking an explanation and hoped it would ensure that “articles are not removed or retracted solely because their findings are controversial or challenge consensus views.”
Magdalen Wind-Mozley, a forensic scientist who works with the Oxford Vaccine Group, called the study “utter garbage from start to finish – it should never have been published.” She said Kennedy’s “apparent attempts to bully the journal here are low.” Wind-Mozley first raised concerns about the paper publicly in 2021 and said she made a formal complaint to the journal in 2022. Elsevier said it launched an investigation last year.
The 2021 study used data from the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive surveillance program that allows anyone to report any suspected adverse health event after vaccination. Critics, including Wind-Mozley, said Miller, who is not a scientist, misinterpreted the nature of VAERS data.
Kennedy’s letter came a week after the Guardian published an article about the retraction. The newspaper identified the Toxicology Reports paper as one of three studies that Kennedy and his allies have used to justify changes to federal vaccine policy.
Spokespeople for Kennedy did not return messages seeking comment on the criticism. The journal’s editor, Lawrence Lash, and Elsevier did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.