Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Offers $100,000 for Proof Vaccines Are Safe

On Wednesday, at a National Press Club Meeting, vaccine skeptic and chairman of the World Mercury Foundation Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced he would give $100,000 to the first person who can prove vaccines are safe for children and pregnant women.

According to a statement from the World Mercury Project, Kennedy “will pay $100,000 to the first journalist, or other individual, who can find a peer-reviewed scientific study demonstrating that thimerosal is safe in the amounts contained in vaccines currently being administered to American children and pregnant women.”

In his book “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,” Kennedy argued that thimerosal – a mercury-based preservative added to vaccines, which has been reduced or removed from most vaccines used today – causes autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asserts, “there is no link between vaccines and autism”; the research that originally suggested there may be a link has been repeatedly disproven, and the doctor who authored the study, Andrew Wakefield, has his medical license rescinded.

The CDC has maintained that there is no connection between thimerosal and autism spectrum disorder. Since 2003, there have been nine CDC-related studies, all of which have determined no link between vaccines containing thimerosal and autism.

According to the CDC, thimerosal was “removed or reduced to trace amounts in all childhood vaccines except for some flu vaccines” between 1999 and 2001. The thimerosal was removed was a precaution, a way to limit children’s exposure to mercury. Now, in 2017, the only childhood vaccines that contain thimerosal are flu shots packaged in multi-dose vials. Thimerosal-free shots are also available.

Last month, Kennedy made headlines after he said Donald Trump had tapped him to head a new vaccine safety commission. Following Kennedy’s statement, more than 350 medical and professional health organizations co-authored a letter to Trump with evidence of the safety of vaccines, stating “Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives.”

Photo credit: Daniel Schwen