Trump says hes skeptical of school vax mandates, open to autism link as HSS nominee RFK Jr. meets senators

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that “I don’t like” school vaccine mandates and that “brilliant people” are investigating whether inoculations cause autism — as famously vaccine-skeptical Health and Human Services secretary-designee Robert F.Kennedy Jr.

met with senators considering his nomination.Trump 78, broached the controversial subject matter during a 70-minute press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.— while also trying to allay fears that Kennedy, a former Democrat who backed his presidential bid, would move to yank vaccines out of use if confirmed.“I think he’s gonna be much less radical than you would think.

I think he’s got a very open mind, or I wouldn’t have put him there,” Trump said at one point, saying that “I found him to be very rational” and “you’re not going to lose the polio vaccine.”But Trump equivocated when asked directly by a reporter, “Vaccines and autism — do you think there’s a link?”“Well, I don’t,” Trump began his answer before adding, “Look, right now, you have some very brilliant people looking at it.”“I had dinner the other night with the head of Pfizer, the head of Eli Lilly, and RFK, as you know, and [Dr.Mehmet] Oz, and we had 10 other people within the administration that are involved, medical, and we’re looking to find out,” Trump added.“You know, if you look at autism, so 30 years ago, we had, I’ve heard numbers of like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000, and now I’m hearing numbers of 1 in 100.

So something’s wrong.There’s something wrong, and we’re going to find out about it.”“Do you want RFK Jr.

to revoke any vaccines?” a journalist asked.“No, I want him to come back with a report.We’re going to find out a lot,” Trump said, before floating pesticides as a possible cause of health conditions.

“Europe doesn’t use pesticides, and yet, they have a better mortality rate than we do.They don’t use pesticides...