President Donald Trump still wants to form an official government committee to “investigate” the link between vaccines and autism, though it has been disproven by scientists for nearly 20 years, according to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Kennedy, the radio host and activist heir to the historic political family, told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that he had met “many times” with members of Trump’s staff since December to try and figure out “what the commission would look like,” according to Politico.
The commission could be formed to include “Americans of the highest integrity” like corporate CEOs and “doctors on television,” Kennedy said.
Read More: 5 Vaccine Myths That Are Completely Not True
The myth that childhood vaccines is in any way linked to autism dates to a 1998 study published in a British medical journal that was later found to have been fraudulent and was withdrawn, but the worldwide panic it set off has persisted, perpetuated by vaccine skeptics like Kennedy.
Additionally, the US already has two groups tasked with investigating the safety of all vaccines: the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, both of which are staffed by scientists.
Vaccines are a critical part of Global Goal 3, which aims to create good health and wellbeing for everyone, including the world's poorest people.
Kennedy met with Trump, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Vice President Mike Pence at Trump Tower in early January to talk about launching the commission.
According to Politico, Trump is also a vaccine skeptic who told Kennedy he had five friends whose children “changed” after they received their childhood vaccines. His goal in potentially forming a commission would be to “make sure we had the safest vaccines and a regulatory process with integrity,” according to the report.
Read More: Everything You Need to Know About the Anti-Vaxxer Movement
Kennedy and actor Robert DeNiro, who is also a vaccine skeptic, held a press conference Wednesday where they offered $100,000 to anyone who could point to a study showing that an ingredient in older vaccines, thimerosal, was safe for children and pregnant women.
Thimerosal has not been an ingredient in most childhood vaccines since 2001 and has been proven to have no link to autism.
Kennedy described conversations with Trump about the potential commission in which the president said he knew “the pharma industry is going to cause an uproar about this, and try to make me back down, and I’m not going to back down.”
Read More: Study: Vaccines Have Prevented 450,000 Deaths in US Since 1963
The pharmaceutical industry has not yet weighed in on the potential commission, but a government-authorized panel that perpetuates vaccine skepticism could face criticism from others in the country: the public health community.
Vaccines are one of the best public health tools in history, helping to rout out crippling and deadly childhood diseases like the measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, and, in the US, polio. But when portions of the population do not get vaccines, the immunity of the entire population is at risk, meaning that diseases can once again spread.
Global Citizen campaigns to bring vaccines to children around the world and end polio so that no child has to suffer an unnecessary death or disease.