(NewsNation) — Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kenney Jr. spoke at a food allergy foundation event today and said that he disagrees with a popular theory surrounding the increased level of peanut allergies in the U.S. over the past decades.
According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly .5% of kids around the world had a peanut allergy in 1997. Numbers have skyrocketed since then, with 2% of children being allergic to peanuts.
In response to a question about previous comments he made about whether a lack of early exposure to peanuts could have been driving the increase in peanut allergies, Kennedy said, “To me, that is not a convincing hypothesis.”
Instead, Kennedy believes that “we need to look at aluminum in vaccines,” which he explains was introduced at the same time that peanut allergies began to become more frequent.
Aluminum in vaccines should be studied: RFK Jr.
It’s not the first time Kennedy has questioned the exposure theory.
Kennedy discussed the topic at a governor’s meeting over the summer in Colorado and promoted the claim that aluminum in vaccines is causing allergies.
Exposing babies to peanuts has reduced allergies: Study
Although the prevalence of peanut allergies has increased from a few decades ago, a recent study reveals that the number of peanut allergies in the U.S. has declined since doctors began issuing guidance to introduce peanut products to infants.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics in October, reveals that since doctors started recommending early exposure to peanut butter in 2015, the number of peanut allergies has been in decline.
The study, limited by the fact that it wasn’t nationally representative and didn’t capture feeding patterns, shows that the rate of peanut allergies in children ages 0 to 3 fell by more than 27% after guidance for high-risk kids was first issued in 2015 and by more than 40% after the recommendations were expanded in 2017.
The Associated Press contributed to this report