In recent years, peanut allergies have become a much less common feature of childhood, thanks to a major change in the advice doctors now give to parents. Despite this significant progress, however, RFK Jr. is now looking to another culprit—one consistent with his twisted ideology.
It might be harder to come up with a list of health problems that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t blame on vaccines. In the latest development, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services argued that children’s peanut allergies are being caused by the dreaded jab.
Kennedy made the remarks during an event held on Monday by the Food Allergy Fund. After dismissing the leading theory for the recent rise in peanut allergies—a lack of exposure to the food in our youngest years—he speculated about the aluminum included in some vaccines as well as pesticides. He then pledged to conduct research that would uncover the supposed real culprits behind the condition.
“Those studies have never been done. We’re going to do them now and we will identify what is causing these allergies,” he said.
Ironically enough, however, food allergy rates in the U.S. have already plunged as of late.
The aluminum misdirect
RFK Jr. relied on personal anecdotes to rebut scientific evidence. He stated that the link between food allergies and a lack of early exposure made no sense to him because of his experiences with his own children, five of whom had allergies. One child reportedly had a peanut allergy so severe that they had to visit the emergency room 22 times by the age of two.
“My house was so filled with peanut butter and I was eating peanut butter for two meals a day and my wife was eating peanut butter when pregnant,” he said, adding that we should instead be focusing on environmental factors like the aluminum in vaccines and pesticides.
Aluminum is sometimes added to a vaccine to boost its ability to provoke a proper immune response from our body. And its inclusion can cause local reactions from a vaccination, such as redness or injection site pain (this is usually a sign of the immune response developing as hoped). Scientists have studied this potential link at depth—to see whether this ingredient can have any long-term health risks—and most of this research has failed to find anything concerning.
A study published just this past June, for example, found no link between the total aluminum exposure from vaccination during the first two years of life and a higher risk of 50 different conditions, including allergic disorders. Meanwhile, some research has suggested that pesticide exposure might raise the risk of asthma, though not other types of allergies.
It’s also worth noting that people are exposed to small doses of aluminum from all sorts of things, and the amount used in vaccines is far smaller than we typically get from our food or drink.
This is hardly the first time that Kennedy and his anti-vaccination allies have tried to point the finger at aluminum in vaccines as a grave threat. And unsurprisingly, plenty of health experts and groups aren’t on board.
Earlier this October, the American Academy of Pediatrics blankly stated: “Evidence shows that vaccines with aluminum are safe and beneficial for children’s health and wellbeing. Research has not found evidence that aluminum in vaccines cause autoimmune conditions, neurodevelopmental disorders, or serious adverse events.”
A solution in need of a problem
What makes this latest bit of drivel from Kennedy all the more baffling is its timing. Allergies are a complex condition, and there often can be more than one cause behind them, such as our genetics. But real-world results have strongly validated the hypothesis of early exposure preventing food allergies.
For many years, doctors told parents to avoid introducing peanuts to their children too early in life (before age three), based on some studies that suggested a potential risk of allergy. But a landmark study in 2015 failed to support that risk and instead pointed to a preventative effect from early exposure. Eventually, this evidence convinced enough experts to change tack.
Starting in 2015, various medical groups changed their guidelines on peanut allergies, with more following in 2017. They now advised parents to introduce foods with peanuts to their kids as early as four months old. In the years after that change, food allergies in the U.S. have sharply dropped. A study earlier this October found that diagnosed peanut allergy cases had declined 43% following the 2017 change, while food allergies in general had declined 36%.
Some kids can and will still get allergies, even if they are exposed to peanuts early in life. And as exemplified by this recent shift in guidelines, sometimes the medical consensus gets things wrong at first. But at the end of the day, I’d much rather trust the scientific process than the decision-making prowess of RFK Jr.
