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 ASHINGTON — Prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that he expects the Trump administration to move forward with a vaccine safety commission and that President Trump pledged that he was “not going to back down” if the drug industry objected to the commission. When it was his turn to testify to the audience of reporters, the actor was blunt: “I’m glad I’m here. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clearly states that there is “no link between vaccines and autism.” 
 
 It’s an issue that Trump has raised several times however, both on the campaign trail and as president. On Wednesday, Kennedy told reporters that Trump aides called him after the meeting and said they had “got out over our skis” and the concept still needed to be vetted. He added that, although he expected the commission to be established, “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen.” 
 
 He said that if the commission moved forward, he would want members without existing prejudices on the issue. But in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Wednesday that included the actor Robert De Niro, Kennedy argued that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, in cahoots with journalists, have been denying the dangers of vaccines, fueled largely by money pumped in by a powerful pharmaceutical industry. What’s he doing on the panel? The 73-year-old Oscar winner was maligned last March when he initially defended the inclusion of “Vaxxed,” a documentary about the alleged danger of vaccines, at the venerable Tribeca Film Festival. Also don’t call him an “anti-vaxxer.” 
 
 “That’s a dirty word used to shut down debate,” he added. If he does the right thing, he does the right thing,” De Niro said.
– Despite once expressing a desire to punch him, Robert De Niro now says he's open to working President Trump—at least indirectly—on exploring the debunked link between autism and vaccines, the Washington Post reports. "If he does the right thing, he does the right thing," the actor said following a panel Wednesday at the National Press Club. The panel was led by Robert Kennedy Jr., chairman of the World Mercury Project. According to BuzzFeed News, Kennedy believes journalists are working with the CDC to bury the truth about a vaccine ingredient called thimerosal causing autism in children, and he offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can produce a study that finds vaccines with the ingredient are safe for kids and pregnant women. De Niro, who was mostly quiet during the panel, did speak up to say he agrees with Kennedy "100%." Science, on the other hand, does not. Doctors, medical organizations, and the CDC say Kennedy's beliefs are unequivocally false. The director of a vaccine education center says seven studies published between 2000 and 2007 alone show that. Furthermore, thimerosal hasn't been used in children's vaccines since 1999 and is barely used in flu vaccines anymore, but autism rates are rising anyway, notes BuzzFeed. Kennedy met with Trump in January about heading a commission on vaccine safety. He says he's spoken to aides three times about the commission since then and expects it to happen, Stat reports. With that on the horizon, 350 medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sent a letter to Trump last week reasserting the safety of vaccines.