Republicans in Congress want to spend taxpayer money to research the repeatedly debunked link between vaccines and autism — all as they continue to cheer on the Trump administration’s cuts to what they consider excessive spending.
So far in his presidency, Donald Trump has aggressively talked up government efficiency, giving Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency aides unprecedented power to review, and cut, federal spending wherever they see fit — including medical research funding. But lawmakers who told NOTUS they’d support more research into whether vaccines cause autism didn’t see it as wasteful or redundant.
“Having more research into what vaccines do at certain ages, I think that’s not waste, fraud and abuse, that’s protection of our youth,” Rep. Cory Mills told NOTUS. “A lot of the waste, fraud and abuse that we’re talking about are unrelated to medical science.”