An influential U.S. medical journal has rejected a request from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to retract a major Danish study that found no evidence of an association between aluminum-containing vaccines and elevated health risks in children.
The study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine investigated health results for over 1.2 million Danish children over two decades. The research used nationwide registry data to examine whether aluminum adjuvants in the vaccines were linked to autoimmune disease, neurodevelopmental disorders, or allergies. The study found no such link.
Experts described the findings as the strongest proof to date on the safety of aluminum adjuvant. Adam Finn, a pediatrician at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, said that it is a solid and massive dataset based on high-quality data. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines. He has changed the traditional federal procedure for making immunization guidelines as the health secretary. Reports showed that he was reviewing vaccines that contain aluminum, while he claims that they can cause allergic and autoimmune diseases.
In a post for the independent clinical research website Trialsite News, Kennedy called the Danish study “a deceitful propaganda stunt” by the pharmaceutical industry and blamed the researchers for organizing the research to avoid discovering damage. He ordered the Annals for the immediate retraction of the paper.
Editor-in-Chief Dr. Christine Laine of Annals said that there was no basis for a retraction. While the journal intended to reply to comments posted on the website, it will not directly address Kennedy’s article, as it was not submitted for peer review. Laine, a professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, highlighted that none of the accusations indicate misconduct.
Head of epidemiology research at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute, Anders Peter Hviid, justified the research in a TrialSite News response. He denied Kennedy’s comments of deception and said that no comments were substantial. Hviid told reporters that he was used to controversy in vaccine safety studies specifically linked to autism. Still, he had not been targeted by a political figure in this way before, and he was confident in his work.
Kennedy’s objections were an insufficient control group, the absence of raw data, and the exclusion of specific exposure to children. Hviid said that a control group was not viable because about 2% of Danish children were not vaccinated, which was too small for statistical comparison. He also said that researchers can use the data for analysis on an individual level, but all the data can not be published as the privacy laws of Danish.
Hviid said that the design of this study was adapted from earlier research conducted by Dr. Matthew Daley at Kaiser Permanente Colorado. Other vaccination critics, including Kennedy’s former group, Children’s Health Defense, have disrupted Danish results on the Annals website. TrialSite News staff supported the size, transparency of data, and government funding, acknowledging the limitations of this research.
The controversy over the Danish study demonstrating that aluminum adjuvants in children’s vaccines are not associated with adverse health outcomes is causing tension among high-profile politicians and public health authorities. Some scientists see this study as a benchmark. The HHS spokesperson declined to comment further.
References: Erman M, Rigby J. Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy’s call for retraction of vaccine study. Reuters. Published on August 11, 2025. Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy’s call for retraction of vaccine study | Reuters
