The three papers shared a common theme — that vaccinated children had a greater risk of health problems than unvaccinated children — but have been criticized by scientists for using poor methodologies and analyses. The decisions by the journals have occurred over the past two months, in some cases years after scientists first raised alarms.
The first study, published by Neil Z Miller in Toxicology Reports in 2021, used data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to suggest a link between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The publisher, Elsevier, said an investigation identified “serious methodological flaws” in using VAERS data to infer a causal relationship. The journal apologized to readers and removed the paper, a rare step that the publisher said was taken because the paper’s conclusions “may pose potential risks to public health and could potentially be applied in clinical practice resulting in harm to patients.”
Miller, who is not a scientist, said in an email that the journal never specified the methodological flaws and that he “strongly opposed the removal of my paper, believing the decision was unjustified.”
The second study, published in Sage Open Medicine in 2020 and co-authored by Miller and Brian S Hooker, argued that vaccinated children experienced higher rates of developmental delays, asthma, and other health problems. The journal attached an expression of concern to the paper on May 18, saying it is under investigation. The action came weeks after The Guardian inquired about a detailed complaint that was emailed to the journal anonymously by a pediatrician and scientist in January 2025. The complainant, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of harassment, said they made the complaint after seeing how such studies have scared parents out of vaccinating their children.
The paper served as a central pillar in the second chapter of Kennedy and Hooker’s 2023 book “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.” The book noted that five medical journals rejected the paper before Sage considered it, and that the peer review process took 11 months. Hooker is now chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy previously led.
Dr. Karina Top, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta, said the paper’s methodological issues were identified within days of its publication in 2020. “These papers are poor science, it appears the authors are making the data fit their hypothesis that vaccines are harmful,” she said.
Miller said the investigation pertained to what he called false allegations that the data came from another source and was not disclosed, and said the expression of concern was not about methodology or findings.
The third study, by Gallagher and Goodman, was published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A in 2010. It found that boys vaccinated for Hepatitis B within the first month of life were more likely to be diagnosed with autism. The paper was retracted on May 21 after an independent statistical reviewer concluded it had fundamental methodological flaws, according to a retraction notice.
The CDC cited the paper in November when it changed its stance on a possible link between vaccines and autism at Kennedy’s direction. The revamped CDC page now states at the top that “studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”
Goodman, dean at New York University’s School of Global Public Health and a professor of biostatistics, said in an email that she and Gallagher stand behind the study’s methodology and noted they acknowledged its limitations. “The paper was never meant to stand alone as the final word on this issue, which is precisely why we called for larger, stronger studies to evaluate this topic — and which other researchers have subsequently done,” Goodman said.
Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has acted on Kennedy’s behalf, cited all three papers during a presentation he was invited to give to a federal vaccine advisory committee in December. In a statement to The Guardian, Siri compared the journals’ actions to a “targeted assassination” and stood by his claim that there is no “available evidence” that vaccines are “safe and effective,” saying his assessment relied on hundreds of other studies.
Morgan McSweeney, a scientist who posts online as Dr. Noc, made a video debunking the hepatitis B paper after seeing the CDC cite it. He said the paper’s problems likely stemmed from weak statistics rather than bad intentions, but that its use by the CDC demonstrated a pattern. “They have a strong opinion about what is true, and then they go looking for whatever scrap of low-quality evidence they can find to support that opinion,” McSweeney said.
Magdalen Wind-Mozley, a forensic scientist with the Oxford Vaccine Group, raised criticisms of the SIDS paper shortly after it was published in 2021 and said she emailed a complaint to Toxicology Reports in January 2022. She said she was not aware of any action taken at the time. Elsevier, the journal’s publisher, said its records do not show any formal complaint until 2025. The removal of the paper, Wind-Mozley said, had come far too late. “It will have done so much harm,” she said.