The vaccine safety panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discussed on Friday the use of aluminum in vaccines and the connection between vaccine ingredients and autism, a controversial topic that is sure to further set the panel at odds with many medical professional groups and split Republicans.
The discussion did not result in any policy changes affecting the availability of vaccines. Still, it signaled that the committee could make changes to vaccine ingredient recommendations in 2026, which would be a significant win for the antivaccine wing of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices discussed aluminum adjuvants, or ingredients in vaccines that boost immune response, in vaccines that do not use live viruses.
At least eight of the 18 childhood immunizations on the schedule contain aluminum adjuvants, including some for hepatitis B, whooping cough, HPV, and polio.
Aluminum adjuvants have been scrutinized by some Republicans as members of the party have concentrated on uncovering what causes autism, especially profound autism with severe intellectual disabilities.
President Donald Trump, during a September press conference on the risk of infants developing autism if a pregnant mother takes Tylenol, made the remark that he wants to see “no aluminum in the vaccine.”
“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace. I don’t see it. I think it’s very bad,” Trump said. “They’re pumping — it looks like they’re pumping into a horse. You have a little child, a little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also raised the possibility of a connection between aluminum adjuvants and autism, as well as other autoimmune conditions, such as asthma and allergies.
Kennedy last month made the CDC change its webpage on the link between vaccines and autism to contradict its long-standing position that there is no causal link between them and instead say that a link cannot be excluded. The page also cites a single study that connects aluminum adjuvants to an increased autism risk.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration have said that a limited amount of ingested or inhaled aluminum is safe. However, ACIP members said that there have not been sufficient studies to determine the safe level of injected aluminum, which bypasses most of the body’s natural defenses.
Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, the newly appointed director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, compared exposure to aluminum adjuvants between children in the United States and Denmark as evidence for the need to review the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule.
Høeg, a dual U.S.-Danish citizen, said during her presentation that children in the U.S. receive roughly 6 milligrams of aluminum via vaccines by the time they are 2 years old, compared to only 1.4 milligrams in Denmark. By age 18, she said, it is up to 8 milligrams in the U.S. and only 2.9 in Denmark.
Høeg made clear that she did not want to “insinuate that there are any specific health concerns” with aluminum adjuvant exposure, but rather that the scientific community does not “have the data to show that there is an established safe amount that children can receive before age 2 or before the age of 18.”
But many critics of comparing the U.S. to Denmark note that the Danish population is only 5.9 million people. By contrast, the metro New York City population is about 8.4 million.
Dr. Flor Muñoz, a non-voting liaison member representing the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said that vaccine recommendations should rely on local conditions, taking into account immigrant populations and varying access to vaccines.
“It seems to be irrelevant to compare United States policy with Danish policy, given that indeed, the data and the decisions need to be based on our local information and needs, and if anything, what we have seen with our yet imperfect system is that it works because we’re able to identify safety signals and we’re able to adopt guidance,” Muñoz said.
Dr. Joseph Hibbeln voiced skepticism about spending precious time and resources on examining the effects of aluminum adjuvants, but said it might be necessary due to the public distrust in the CDC and other public health authorities regarding the identification of the underlying relationship between vaccines and autism.
“It’s a very interesting question, and the public, now that it’s alerted to these issues, may demand us to make an evaluation of this question,” Hibbeln said.
A poll conducted earlier this week by the conservative Manhattan Institute found that roughly a third of Republican voters believe that childhood vaccines cause autism.
That view is more common among college graduates, 42% of whom agree, than non-college graduates, at 29%. Among new entrants to the GOP, or those who joined the party within the past two presidential cycles, nearly half, 47%, believe there is a connection between vaccines and autism.
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Retsev Levi, who holds a doctorate in operations management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the scientific community needs more humility regarding the evidence.
“I think that, unfortunately, babies cannot tell you how they feel more often than not,” Levi said. “And I think that the biology of our body, and our immune system, and our central nervous system is complex. I think that there is evidence that stimulation of the immune system in utero or early childhood can interact with the neurodevelopment.”
