Trump shares video highlighting discredited theory linking vaccines to autism

President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video to his social media account promoting the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism.

The decades-old video, in part, features David Geier, who Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped this spring to investigate links between vaccines and autism, alongside his father, Dr. Mark Geier, whose medical license was suspended following claims he endangered children with autism. The anti-vaccine activists have published numerous studies on the topic and discuss some of their ideas in the video, which circulated around the internet Monday after Trump shared it.

Trump’s post comes just days after Kennedy was grilled by senators, including multiple Republicans, on his stance on vaccines. Kennedy was also forced to defend his leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services and his decision to recommend Trump fire the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It also comes ahead of an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting later this month, during which the committee is expected to vote to update recommendations for Covid-19 vaccines, as well as other immunizations.

A White House official, granted anonymity to share the administration’s thinking, said the video did not indicate the administration or Kennedy were anti-vaccine, just that they wanted to follow the science.

The official defended the video as only being about the safety of thimerosal, an ingredient that Kennedy’s handpicked panel of independent vaccine advisors voted in June to remove from multi-dose flu vaccines. Thimerosal, a kind of mercury used to prevent the growth of fungi and bacteria in vaccine vials, was removed from childhood immunizations in 2001 as a precautionary measure. Several scientific studies have shown no links between thimerosal and autism, though anti-vaccine advocates continue to insist there is a link.

The official also rejected the idea that the video in any way conflicted with the president’s positive statements about vaccines from Friday. Asked about Florida’s efforts to axe childhood vaccine mandates, Trump said that “we have to be very careful” and that there are some vaccines that are “so amazing” and “just pure and simple work.”

“It’s not a binary, you’re either fully in favor of vaccines and have no questions or concerns about them” or you’re against them, the White House official said. “That doesn’t mean that if there’s — in the case of thimerosal — concerns we shouldn’t also be taking an evidence-based look.”

A second White House official granted anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking said the video doesn’t change Trump’s “general opinion of vaccines.”

“He’s opposed to mandates, but he believes in the more common, generic, long standing vaccines that Americans have been receiving for decades, like polio, measles, etc, but he’s open,” the official said. “He’s open to , if you have evidence of something, show it to me.”

Trump, according to the official, disapproved, at first, of Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s proposal to end vaccine mandates. “Why would they do that,” he asked, according to the official.

He then listened to the arguments for why they made the move and understood, the official said, though both publicly and privately he urged caution when it comes to longstanding vaccine practices like polio.

Kennedy has promised to issue a report on the causes of autism by the end of the month, telling Trump at an August cabinet meeting that his efforts were on track.

Trump, who has been supportive of Kennedy since he dropped out and endorsed him in the presidential race, has expressed an openness to Kennedy’s ideas though he also last week called the polio vaccine “amazing.”

“There has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something. And I know you’re looking very strongly at different things, and I hope you can come out with that as soon as possible,” Trump said.

Dasha Burns contributed to this report.