Trump appoints anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. to head commission on vaccine safety

(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly asked Robert Kennedy Jr. to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity. Kennedy has accepted the position, Time's Zeke Miller reports.

Kennedy is the author of Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, which alleges that the vaccine ingredient thimerosal has led to a rise in autism in the United States. But "with the exception of the flu vaccine, [thimerosal] was removed from or reduced to trace levels in all vaccines given to children under 6-years-old 13 years ago," Time writes. "You face a greater mercury risk eating seafood and fish — and even that danger is low enough that the EPA recently recommended that pregnant and nursing women increase their intake of certain kinds of fish because the nutritional benefits outweigh the theoretical dangers."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.