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The Trump administration is studying another big change to some commonly used vaccines. It is considering removing aluminum. The effort is raising new worries among many public health experts. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has the story.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: For almost a century, some important vaccines have contained tiny amounts of aluminum.
JESSE GOODMAN: Aluminum is added to some vaccines because it's a very safe but also effective stimulant of the immune system.
STEIN: Dr. Jesse Goodman is a vaccine expert at Georgetown University. He used to regulate vaccines at the Food and Drug Administration but left the agency in 2014.
GOODMAN: It's like making your immunity muscle stronger. It basically stimulates your cells to make more antibodies and a stronger immune response overall.
STEIN: To help protect against diseases like whooping cough, tetanus, the flu, but Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long questioned the safety of aluminum in vaccines. President Trump recently called for removing aluminum, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now studying doing just that. Some researchers think that's a good idea.
CHRISTOPHER EXLEY: My opinion is something along the lines of what Trump said.
STEIN: Christopher Exley is a biologist who recently retired from Keele University in the U.K. He's long questioned the safety of aluminum in vaccines.
EXLEY: I really believe that aluminum in vaccines is inherently bad, full stop. And so any suggestion that we're going to remove it, I think, is absolutely marvelous, not only for making America healthy again but for making the world healthy again because this has been a mistake. It's been a mistake for over 100 years.
STEIN: Exley says studies have linked aluminum to health problems including autism, ADHD and asthma. But most health experts say those studies are flawed, and there's no good evidence aluminum is unsafe. In fact, a very large, highly regarded Danish study recently debunked any danger even more. Anders Hviid at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark conducted that study, which involved more than 1.2 million Danish children.
ANDERS HVIID: We do not see any evidence that aluminum is a cause of serious illness in childhood. There is no scientific reason to take aluminum out of childhood vaccines. There's no science that supports that it's dangerous.
STEIN: And Hviid and other medical experts say removing aluminum from vaccines would cause lots of problems. First of all, the vaccines that contain aluminum just wouldn't work.
STANLEY PLOTKIN: To remove aluminum, in effect, destroying or limiting the effectiveness of vaccines, is incredibly stupid.
STEIN: Dr. Stanley Plotkin is a prominent vaccine scientist from the University of Pennsylvania. He notes people are exposed to far more aluminum in the environment than from vaccines, and it would take years to develop new vaccines without aluminum.
PLOTKIN: And what has happened with measles will happen with other diseases - that is, coming back to this country. So do we want that? Well, apparently, some people do.
STEIN: Now, no one says they want any diseases to come back, but Dr. Ofer Levy at Harvard says vaccine technology has advanced a lot in 100 years.
OFER LEVY: It's human nature to try to make things even better, right? So with all of the sophisticated science we have in the year 2025, probably there's room for improvement.
STEIN: So careful research to explore possible alternatives would be a good idea, but even Levy stresses that any changes should only be made if well-conducted studies support it. In the meantime, Levy and others say, no one should hesitate about getting a vaccine containing aluminum. Rob Stein, NPR News.
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