A peer-reviewed scientific paper examining a potential connection between infant vaccination timing and sudden infant death syndrome has been quietly removed from the website of Toxicology Reports, a journal owned by publishing giant Elsevier — and now two of the highest-ranking federal figures in U.S. health policy are demanding to know why. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has formally called on Elsevier’s CEO and the journal’s editor-in-chief to release all records surrounding that decision, escalating a transparency dispute that is drawing significant scrutiny to the practices of academic publishing in the vaccine space.
The Paper in Question
The study at the center of this controversy is titled Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature, authored by vaccine researcher Neil Z. Miller. The paper was published in Toxicology Reports in June 2021, having passed the journal’s peer-review process. According to reporting by Children’s Health Defense, the analysis examined data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and found that from 1990 to 2019, significantly more SIDS reports were filed in the first few days following vaccination than in the days that followed.
The paper also included a broader review of the scientific literature on vaccines and SIDS, reportedly documenting increases in SIDS rates following the rollout of certain national immunization campaigns and cataloguing case reports of SIDS in recently vaccinated infants. The paper remained on the Toxicology Reports website for several years before being removed — a removal that has prompted formal demands for explanation from both a sitting U.S. senator and the sitting U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Johnson’s Formal Demand
In a letter dated June 29, 2026, and made public on July 13, Sen. Johnson directed his inquiry to both the editor-in-chief of Toxicology Reports and the CEO of Elsevier. The letter calls on both parties to release all records related to the decision-making process that led to Miller’s analysis being removed from the journal’s website.
Johnson noted in the letter that Miller’s paper had been subjected to criticism on PubPeer, an online platform that allows public commentary on published scientific work. Critics of the platform have referred to it as “PubSmear,” a term that has circulated in debates over whether such forums are used constructively to improve science or as tools to pressure journals into removing disfavored research.
The senator has been actively examining questions of scientific censorship in recent months. He recently chaired a hearing focused on what his office has described as attacks on published science, including the suppression of research related to vaccine injuries and COVID vaccine cancer risks.
RFK Jr. Moved First
Johnson’s letter follows an earlier intervention by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on June 11 wrote his own letter to Toxicology Reports‘ editor-in-chief demanding a full explanation of the process leading to the removal of Miller’s paper. In a June 15 post on X sharing his letter, Kennedy wrote that “Americans have a right to know why scientific papers are removed, who made those decisions, and whether the same standards are applied consistently,” according to reporting by Becker’s Behavioral Health.
The near-simultaneous intervention by both a sitting cabinet secretary and a U.S. senator marks an unusual moment of federal-level pressure being applied directly to an academic publisher over a specific editorial decision.
A Broader Pattern of Journal Scrutiny
The removal of Miller’s SIDS analysis is not an isolated case drawing federal attention. Around the same time, the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health retracted a 2010 study that had claimed male newborns vaccinated against hepatitis B in their first month of life had threefold greater odds of an autism diagnosis compared to those vaccinated later or not at all. In its May 21 retraction statement, the journal cited fundamental methodological flaws identified during an independent statistical review, including a critically small sample of autism cases — just 31 — and an overstated conclusion that inappropriately implied causality. Neither author of the retracted paper agreed with the retraction, according to Becker’s Behavioral Health. A second paper by the same authors is reportedly under investigation by its publisher.
These developments are unfolding against a backdrop of heightened federal attention to vaccine-related research and public health messaging. In November 2025, the CDC removed language from its website stating that vaccines do not cause autism, replacing it with a statement that science has not ruled out a connection — a change that the American Academy of Pediatrics publicly called false, citing more than 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million people that found no such link, per Becker’s reporting.
VAERS: A Disputed Evidentiary Tool
Central to Miller’s removed paper is VAERS — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. VAERS is a passive surveillance system that accepts reports of adverse events following vaccination from anyone, including healthcare providers, patients, and manufacturers. It is widely used as a signal-detection tool, but its limitations are well-documented: reports are unverified, and a report filed in VAERS does not establish that a vaccine caused the reported event.
Sen. Johnson himself has previously acknowledged these limitations publicly. In a 2021 interview cited by The Washington Post, he stated that VAERS “is an imperfect system” and that adverse effects data from it must be taken “with a grain of salt.” The nature of VAERS data has been a central point of debate in evaluating Miller’s analysis, with critics arguing that temporal clustering of SIDS reports after vaccination in VAERS cannot establish causation, while the paper’s defenders argue such patterns warrant further investigation rather than suppression.
What the Demands Seek
Both Kennedy’s and Johnson’s letters center on procedural transparency rather than making direct assertions about the paper’s scientific conclusions. The core demand is for documentation: who made the decision to remove the paper, on what grounds, and through what process. Johnson’s letter specifically requests all records related to the removal decision from both the journal’s editor-in-chief and Elsevier’s CEO.
As of the time of reporting, neither Toxicology Reports nor Elsevier had issued a public response to either letter. The paper’s listing on ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s research platform, currently shows the article as removed.
The Transparency Question
At its core, this dispute raises questions that extend well beyond the specific findings of Neil Z. Miller’s analysis. Academic journals occupy a critical gatekeeping function in the production and validation of scientific knowledge. When papers that have passed peer review are subsequently removed, the standards and processes governing those decisions carry significant public interest weight — particularly in areas of science that directly affect public health policy.
The involvement of a U.S. senator and a cabinet secretary in demanding records from a private academic publisher represents a striking escalation of that transparency debate. Whether Elsevier and Toxicology Reports comply, and what those records ultimately reveal about the decision-making process, may determine whether this remains a dispute over one paper or becomes a broader reckoning with how scientific publishing handles politically sensitive research.
This article draws on reporting from Activist Post / Children’s Health Defense, Becker’s Behavioral Health, MedPage Today, and The Washington Post.
