Mainstream media widely promoted a new study by Danish researchers that found no link between aluminum in vaccines and 50 negative health outcomes, including autism, asthma and autoimmune disorders.
However, critics told The Defender the study used flawed methodology and “statistical tricks” that muddied the findings.
The authors published their report on July 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. On July 14, even before the study went live, mainstream and health industry media, including NBC News and STAT News, publicly announced the results.
Chris Exley, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading experts on the health effects of aluminum exposure, and Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said that in order to determine if aluminum exposure is linked to health conditions, the researchers should have compared children with no aluminum exposure to children with aluminum exposure.
But that’s not what the Danish scientists did. Instead, they compared children who received vaccines containing aluminum to children who received vaccines with slightly less aluminum.
Not only that, but there was only a one-milligram difference between the amount of aluminum in the vaccine doses received by the children in one of the groups compared to those in another group. Comparing children with similar aluminum levels rather than comparing children with low levels of aluminum to children with high levels of the metal further muddled the findings, Hooker said.
The researchers examined national vaccination records of about 1.2 million children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018 and tracked the rates of 50 chronic health conditions.
Using statistical analyses, the authors concluded there was no link between aluminum content in vaccines and increased risk of developing autism, autoimmune diseases, asthma or allergic conditions, including food allergies and hay fever.
Anders Hviid, a professor and department head of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut and lead study author, told MedPage Today, the results “provide robust evidence supporting the safety of childhood vaccines.”
“This is evidence that parents, clinicians, and public health officials need to make the best choices for the health of our children,” Hviid said.
In a press release, Hviid called the results “reassuring” and said large studies like his are important in “an era marked by widespread misinformation about vaccines.”
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