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Editor’s note: The lead author of the Danish study on aluminum in vaccines, Anders Hviid, responded post-deadline to The Defender’s request for comment. Here is his verbatim response: “The journal has issued a correction which correctly describes that an earlier version of the supplementary materials was originally uploaded instead of the current correct version. This was a mistake made by the journal. We currently have no plans of commenting further on this, but encourage people to raise this issue to Annals of Internal Medicine in comments, where we can respond, and there will be a record of this exchange associated with the paper. The video you reference is filled with inaccurate claims and false allegations. We encourage Jablonsky [sic] to raise these in a comment to the journal and we will respond to them one-by-one. We stand by the results and our interpretation of these results.”
The researchers who made the rounds on mainstream media to announce that their study of 1.2 million children found no link between aluminum in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, have yet to acknowledge that the study’s corrected data show just the opposite.
On July 17, the Annals of Internal Medicine, which originally published the Danish study on July 15, issued a correction, stating that the journal “included an incorrect version of the Supplementary Material at the time of initial publication.”
The updated materials are available with the link to the study at “Correction: Aluminum-Adsorbed Vaccines and Chronic Diseases in Childhood.”
As of press time today, the authors had not revised their findings to coincide with the corrected materials that contradict their originally stated findings.
In a press release today, Children’s Health Defense Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker said:
“Although the authors claim to ‘not find evidence’ associating aluminum with any harm, an examination of the study’s additional data reveals that Asperger syndrome, autistic disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and other pervasive developmental disorders are found to be statistically significantly associated with higher doses of aluminum in vaccines.
“To ignore this data in the initial publication and not correct it now is highly inappropriate.”
On July 21, The Defender reached out to lead author Anders Hviid, a professor and department head of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut, for comment on the allegation that the corrected data show a link between increased aluminum exposure and autism. In response, we received an automated email from Hviid stating that he was “out-of-office for the summer,” until Aug. 11.
Yet on July 22, Hviid and his co-authors posted an “author response” to other criticisms about the study that researchers had posted on the journal’s study webpage. The response appears at the bottom of the webpage.
The link between aluminum in vaccines and autism appears in Figure 11 (page 19) of the corrected supplemental materials.
The original version showed that children who received a large dose of aluminum were not at greater risk of getting a neurodevelopmental diagnosis, including autism, than kids who received a small or moderate dose.
Yet the corrected version showed that kids who received a large dose had a statistically significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with autism or other “pervasive” developmental disorders compared to those who received a moderate dose of aluminum.
Will authors contact media to report corrected data?
When The Defender today asked Hviid in an email if he and his co-authors intended to alert news agencies that their data did find evidence of a link between aluminum in vaccines and autism, we received another automated email from Hviid, stating that he was “on summer leave until 13 August.”
The study’s corresponding author, Niklas Worm Andersson, M.D, Ph.D., an epidemiology researcher at the Statens Serum Institut, did not respond to a request for comment today or on July 21.
According to the Statens Serum Institut in a July 15 press release about the study, Hviid and his co-authors found “no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines and 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma, and autoimmune diseases.”
The release stated, “The findings reaffirm the safety of Denmark’s childhood vaccination program.”
Hviid was quoted in the release as saying the results were “reassuring” and that large studies like his are important in “an era marked by widespread misinformation about vaccines.”
The Statens Serum Institut’s press office didn’t immediately respond when asked if it planned to issue a new press release acknowledging that the corrected data showed that kids who received a large dose of aluminum had a statistically significantly higher risk of some neurological disorders, including autism, compared with kids who received a moderate dose.
Aluminum in vaccines isn’t safe just because it’s in a salt form
On July 14, even before the study went live, mainstream and health industry media, including NBC News and STAT News, publicly announced the results.
In his interview with NBC News, Hviid said that the aluminum in vaccines is in the form of aluminum salts, “which is not the same as elemental aluminum which is a metal.”
He added, “It’s really important for parents to understand that we are not injecting metal into children.”
But aluminum experts who spoke with The Defender said aluminum doesn’t need to be in its metal form for it to be toxic.
“Reassuring the public by drawing a false distinction between aluminum salts and elemental aluminum is rhetorical obfuscation,” said James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., founder of IPAK-EDU, an adult online institution of higher learning. “It is like saying mercury in thimerosal isn’t mercury.”
According to Lyons-Weiler, aluminum salts are not inert. “They are used as vaccine adjuvants because of their biological activity. They kill cells, bind to antigens, provoke immune activation and persist in tissue.”
“In fact,” he said, “these salts are more bioavailable than elemental aluminum because they dissolve in bodily fluids and are actively taken up by immune cells.”
He added:
“The adjuvants used in vaccines are well-documented to migrate, accumulate, and persist, especially in infants whose renal clearance is immature. Numerous studies — human, animal, and mechanistic — demonstrate that aluminum adjuvants can access the brain, disrupt cytokine signaling, and impair development.”
Some aluminum salts, including aluminum hydroxide or aluminum phosphate, are “intentionally used to induce autoimmunity in mice and rats, including lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, multiple sclerosis, allergic rhinitis and asthma,” he added.
Chris Exley, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading experts on the health effects of aluminum exposure, called Hviid’s reference to metal a “smokescreen” that sends the message, “Gosh, no, we are not talking about injecting aluminium metal directly into the body, no, that would be absurd. We are simply talking about minuscule amounts of wholly benign aluminium salt, just like putting salt on your dinner.”
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Guillemette Crépeaux, Ph.D., associate professor at École Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort, agreed. “Hviid is playing with words and clearly lacks sufficient understanding of aluminium chemistry.”
The fact that the aluminum in vaccines is in a salt form is “irrelevant,” according to Crépeaux, who said:
“Aluminium-containing vaccine adjuvants possess all the characteristics required to be plausible causes of numerous disorders, including neurodevelopmental ones. Attempting to obscure this reality while claiming to study the issue is, at the very least, dishonest.”
Crépeaux and colleagues are writing a rebuttal to the Danish study. They plan to submit it for publication later this summer.
Meanwhile, the claim that the Danish study found no link between aluminum in vaccines and negative health conditions continues to be circulated on social media.
For instance, Amazing Science Facts — a Facebook page with 2 million followers — on July 25 posted a picture with the words, “A Danish Study Involving Over 1 Million Children Finds No Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism.” The picture and words have since been reposted by multiple users on X.
Related articles in The Defender
- Calls Grow for Journal to Retract Danish Study After Corrected Data Show Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism
- Study Claiming No Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism Riddled with Flaws, Critics Say
- 4 Things the New York Times Got Wrong About Aluminum in Vaccines
- 5 Scientific Findings Explain Link Between Vaccines and Autism — Why Do Health Agencies Ignore Them?
- 36% Higher Risk of Asthma in Some Kids Who Had Vaccine-Related Aluminum Exposure, CDC Study Shows
