Trump pushes RFK Jr. to probe alleged vaccine-autism link, cut child shots

White House aides asked focus on food policy before midterms

At a May lunch at the president’s golf course in northern Virginia, Trump asked Kennedy why he was not doing more to probe the alleged connection between vaccines and autism, according to the people. The health secretary had “the yips,” Trump told Kennedy, one of the people said. The president steers nearly every conversation with his health secretary back to the issue, some of the people said.

Trump’s chief desire is to reduce the number of shots that federal guidelines recommend for children, according to the people, who said the president hopes to then see autism rates drop, even if any such effect could take years.

White House political advisers had asked Kennedy to tone down his vaccine efforts ahead of the midterms, the people said. In a mid-June meeting in the Oval Office, the president vented to Kennedy that he was not doing enough, the people said. Trump has made clear he thinks he has given Kennedy enough time and is disappointed the health secretary has not accomplished more in the past year and a half, the people said.

The president signed an executive order at the end of May demanding HHS cut back the number of recommended vaccines in the childhood schedule, saying the U.S. was out of step with other nations. Some top health officials were confused and surprised by the order, because they were following an earlier message from the White House to ease up on their vaccine efforts.

In January, Kennedy proposed cutting the recommended childhood shots, to vaccinations against 11 diseases, down from 17 under previous guidelines. But federal Judge Brian E. Murphy blocked the plan in March, saying the government appeared to have improperly bypassed a vaccine advisory panel tasked with making recommendations on immunizations. He also ruled that many of Kennedy’s picks to the vaccine panel were unlawfully appointed.

The government is appealing the decision about the appointment of the panel’s members. Kennedy’s aides have issued a new charter for the committee, one with fewer requirements for members’ expertise, and are working to appoint new members.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said countless parents with questions about “America’s skyrocketing autism rates have long been ignored if not mocked.” He said that changed the day Trump took office. “The Trump administration is committed to leaving no stone unturned to finally address these concerns with Gold Standard Science,” he said.

HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said Kennedy and Trump are “aligned in their commitment to confronting the chronic disease epidemic affecting America’s children through rigorous, gold-standard science.”

Multiple scientific studies have shown no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, including a 2019 Annals of Internal Medicine study of more than 600,000 children in Denmark and a 2021 Cochrane review of 138 studies. Scientists in mainstream academic settings say there is no scientific justification for dramatically paring down the childhood vaccine schedule, arguing that today’s vaccines are more precise and stimulate the immune system with fewer antigens while protecting against more diseases.

Trump has talked about his particular interest in the MMR vaccine and has said he would like to break up the combination shot into separate shots, though scientists have said there is no scientific reason to do that and that it could result in missed shots.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affected roughly 1 in 31 8-year-olds in the U.S. in 2022, up from about 1 in 150 in 2000, according to CDC estimates. Scientists have not pinpointed a definitive cause for the rise.

Behind the scenes, Kennedy had been promising he would deliver an answer on autism. Former Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, who gained fame as a critic of vaccine mandates and now works for Kennedy’s department, is leading a series of vaccine studies that could take months or years. The National Institutes of Health has also launched studies on autism-related issues.

Kennedy’s progress on his broader Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda has been slow. His greatest accomplishments, according to backers, are new dietary guidelines encouraging Americans to “eat real food” and voluntary commitments by companies to remove dyes from food products. Other parts of the food reform agenda, including promises to remove toxic additives and pesticides, have stalled.

A KFF survey in June found that more than 80% of adults said they trust health information from their own doctors, while only 34% said they trusted it from Kennedy. Longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio found last winter that vaccine skepticism was unpopular with voters, while people were more interested in Kennedy’s efforts to improve food and agriculture.

Kennedy and his staff got on board with the new focus, with top adviser Calley Means penning a memo about “green light” messaging, such as touting the new dietary guidelines, and “red light” topics, such as vaccines, people familiar with the matter said. In almost all of his public appearances since, Kennedy avoided speaking about vaccines.

But the president, at odds with the advice of his top aides, has not dropped his focus on the issue. Trump has said an unnamed friend’s child became autistic after receiving a vaccine and that he knows three people whose children had adverse reactions, sometimes becoming emotional about the topic, people familiar said. He has told his health secretary that making progress on autism should be Kennedy’s most important health policy priority, other people familiar said.

“I really believe Donald Trump cares about this vaccine issue,” said Del Bigtree, who ran communications for Kennedy’s independent presidential bid. “I think he’s seen it hit close to home in some way.”

Inside HHS, officials have scrambled to figure out how to do more on the autism issue, with Kennedy eager to show the president progress, the people said. Kennedy’s goal is to survive political pressure from Trump’s aides and make the president happy, including by embracing an enhanced role for his Medicare chief, Chris Klomp, who now runs day-to-day operations of the department.