RFK Jr demanded a vaccine study be retracted – the journal said no

Nature of the Danish Study and Its Design

• Commenters stress that the Danish work is a cohort study, not a randomized clinical trial. It leverages different birth cohorts that received vaccines with different aluminum content to look for associations with ~50 chronic diseases.
• Exclusions (children who died before age two, early respiratory diagnoses, and some with highest aluminum exposure) are described as focusing on the demographic actually receiving routine early-childhood vaccination and removing known confounders (e.g., infections that themselves cause later disease).
• Some see this as standard “data cleaning,” making analysis less noisy; others think excluding those “most likely to reveal injuries” could bias results toward finding no harm and should be more transparently justified or reanalyzed.

Placebo, Unvaccinated Groups, and Ethics

• Multiple comments explain that placebo-controlled “no vaccine” arms are not ethical once a vaccine is standard of care; institutional review boards will not approve deliberately withholding protection from children.
• Modern trials instead compare new vaccines to existing “gold standard” regimens, not to placebos.
• Several commenters correct the expectation that the Danish study should function like a randomized trial; that evidence base existed before approval.

Aluminum Exposure and Safety Debate

• One side argues aluminum in vaccines is tiny compared to dietary intake and is rapidly excreted, with human data suggesting no higher aluminum burden in vaccinated vs unvaccinated people.
• A skeptic challenges food vs injection comparisons, notes different absorption routes and adjuvant forms, and cites rodent and human studies showing long-term tissue persistence. They estimate first‑year injected aluminum entering the bloodstream could exceed ingested aluminum by a factor of a few to tens.
• Others counter with reviews concluding no evidence of harm at vaccine doses, and argue policy should not change without demonstrated risk, while still accepting that further research is reasonable.

Vaccines, Misinformation, and Broader Context

• Several comments highlight the enormous reduction in mortality from vaccination, contrasting it with war deaths and placing it alongside antibiotics in impact.
• Others point to a pattern where anti‑vaccine figures monetize fear by selling unregulated supplements.
• Some debate whether hygiene or vaccination contributed more to historical declines in child mortality, with no clear consensus in the thread.

RFK Jr. and Politics

• Many commenters see RFK Jr.’s criticisms as scientifically uninformed and conspiratorial but note his political influence makes his views consequential.