Vaccine Skeptic Robert Kennedy To Head Trump Commission

WASHINGTON, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Jan, 2017 ) - US President-elect Donald Trump met Tuesday with prominent environmentalist and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr and asked him to head a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity, Kennedy said.

The 62-year-old son of slain senator Bobby Kennedy and nephew of late president John F. Kennedy has questioned the use of mercury in vaccines and suggested an apparent link to autism, a notion that the majority of the scientific community rejects and numerous studies have debunked.

"He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity," Kennedy said after the meeting, which he said Trump had called and requested.

"I said I would." Kennedy said the job would be to "make sure we have scientific integrity in the vaccine process for efficacy and safety." Both Kennedy and Trump have expressed concerns that childhood vaccinations could lead to autism.

"Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policies and he has questions about it," Kennedy told reporters. "His opinion doesn't matter but the science does matter and we ought to be reading the science and we ought to be debating the science," he added.

"Everybody ought to be able to be assured that the vaccines that we have -- he's very pro-vaccine, as am I -- but they're as safe as they possibly can be."