On June 15, 2026, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a letter on X that he had sent to the editor-in-chief of Toxicology Reports, an Elsevier-published journal. The letter demands detailed explanations for the journal’s decision to remove a 2021 study linking childhood vaccination to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
The study, “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990,2019 and review of the medical literature,” by independent researcher Neil Z. Miller, was removed by the journal on April 9, 2026, after an investigation found “serious methodological flaws” in its use of VAERS data. The journal’s removal notice stated that the paper’s conclusions “are not supported by the methodology employed” and warned that applying its recommendations could “pose potential risks to public health” and “result in harm to patients.”
Kennedy’s letter, dated June 11, demands to know how the removal decision was reached, which experts were consulted, and what criteria distinguish article removal from retraction. “Research integrity and academic freedom have been important issues to me,” Kennedy wrote, calling the journal’s two-sentence removal notice “woefully insufficient.”
The Study in Question
Miller’s 2021 paper analysed the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive surveillance database, to argue for a statistical correlation between routine childhood vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome. Public health experts have repeatedly warned that VAERS is not designed to establish causation; it is a voluntary reporting system that collects unverified submissions, making it vulnerable to reporting bias, under-reporting, and confounding.
The journal’s investigation concluded that the paper’s methodology could not support its conclusions. The removal was not a simple retraction for editorial error, it was an action taken on public health grounds, with the journal citing potential harm to patients if the findings were acted upon.
Miller disputes the removal. The study was cited by Kennedy’s former personal lawyer, Aaron Siri, in a speech to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a speech that preceded the committee’s controversial overhaul of the childhood immunization schedule, which was later blocked by a federal judge who ruled the government had “disregarded” established scientific methods.
The Conflict of Interest
The overlapping roles are difficult to ignore. Kennedy is simultaneously the HHS Secretary responsible for federal vaccine policy, the political figure whose former lawyer cited Miller’s study to justify ACIP policy changes, and a long-time vaccine-safety advocate now demanding a private journal justify its editorial decisions to his office.
Dr Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law expert at UC Law San Francisco, wrote on X: “If he is trying to use his position to bully a journal, he is stepping close to violating their First Amendment rights.”
Dr David Gorski, a surgical oncologist and researcher of the anti-vaccine movement, was more direct: “To antivaxxers, it’s free speech for me, but not for thee.” He said Kennedy was “apparently using the power of his position” to pressure a private publisher.
An HHS spokesperson defended Kennedy, arguing that “asking questions is not censorship. Seeking an explanation is not coercion.”
The Broader Context
This is not Kennedy’s first intervention of this kind. In August 2025, he called for retraction of a Danish study finding no link between aluminium in vaccines and childhood diseases, as reported by Nature. The current letter continues a pattern of a government official with direct authority over public health policy attempting to influence the editorial decisions of independent scientific journals.
The journal’s editor-in-chief, Lawrence Lash, and publisher Elsevier have not publicly responded to Kennedy’s letter as of the Guardian’s publication. The journal had previously told the Guardian that the removal followed “careful review and consultation with relevant experts.”
The case highlights a tension that has become increasingly central to American science policy. In an era when a substantial portion of the public doubts vaccine safety despite overwhelming scientific evidence, where do the boundaries lie between legitimate oversight of scientific publishing and political pressure on editorial independence? And what happens when the official asking the questions is also the official whose policies, and former lawyer, relied on the study in question?
Sources:
1. The Guardian. “RFK Jr under fire for ‘bullying’ letter to scientific journal.” June 15, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/15/rfk-jr-letter-medical-journal-vaccine-study
2. Miller, N.Z. “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990,2019 and review of the medical literature.” Toxicology Reports 8, 1324,1335 (2021). Removed April 2026.
3. Toxicology Reports. Removal notice, April 9, 2026. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750026301907
4. Reiss, D. (UC Law San Francisco). Commentary on X, June 15, 2026.
5. Gorski, D. Commentary, June 15, 2026.
6. The Guardian. Previous coverage of ACIP schedule changes and federal court ruling, June 4, 2026.