A co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition staff stated Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. desires entry to federal well being knowledge so he can present vaccines are unsafe and result in them being pulled from the market in a second Trump administration.
Howard Lutnick echoed numerous Kennedy’s debunked anti-vaccine speaking factors in a CNN interview Wednesday, together with falsehoods in regards to the vaccine schedule and the disproven idea that vaccines trigger autism. Trump has talked typically about how Kennedy, who suspended his personal presidential bid and endorsed him in August, can have a giant function to play if the previous president returns to the White Home.
Whereas Lutnick stated Kennedy wouldn’t be chosen as secretary of well being and human providers, he was not particular about what Kennedy’s function is likely to be. Lutnick made the feedback the identical day that Kennedy advised NewsNation that Trump requested him to “reorganize” businesses together with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Meals and Drug Administration and a few businesses beneath the Division of Agriculture.
The feedback by Lutnick raised rapid issues amongst public well being specialists that giving affect to one of many most outstanding anti-vaccine activists on this planet may result in what one stated can be “severe health consequences” for People, particularly kids. They arrive simply days earlier than the Nov. 5 election and as Trump, a Republican, and Democrat Kamala Harris are vying to sway late-deciding voters to their facet.
Lutnick, the CEO of the monetary providers firm Cantor Fitzgerald, advised CNN that Kennedy desires entry to knowledge “so he can say these things are unsafe” and that may cease the gross sales.
“He says, if you give me the data, all I want is the data and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market. So that’s his point,” Lutnick stated.
It was unclear what knowledge Lutnick was referring to since in depth knowledge and analysis on vaccine security is publicly accessible.
The World Well being Group has estimated that international immunization efforts have saved not less than 154 million lives prior to now 50 years.
In current days, Trump has stated he would let Kennedy “go wild” on well being, meals and medicines. Kennedy has stated repeatedly that he plans to train his affect over a variety of insurance policies if Trump wins and stated Trump had promised him management over well being businesses and advised him he wished him to reorganize them.
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Requested about Kennedy’s feedback and his function in a Trump administration, Jason Miller, a senior adviser for the marketing campaign stated the one factor Trump and his marketing campaign are centered on is successful on Nov. 5.
“Everything after that is after that, and President Trump has made clear that Bobby Kennedy will play an important role,” Miller wrote.
It could be “extremely dangerous” to place Kennedy ready of energy the place he may make choices or have the flexibility to vary regulatory coverage, stated Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public well being apply on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg College of Public Well being.
“Removing vaccines from the market would lead to severe health consequences for America,” stated Sharfstein, a former deputy commissioner of the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration. “We go about our daily lives in the United States not worrying about a lot of preventable diseases like measles because of the protection that the vaccines provide. But if there were to be a systematic effort to use the tools of the federal government to undermine vaccination, children won’t be safe. Full stop.”
Even when Kennedy is given a lesser function the place he supplies enter and feedback however doesn’t have management over coverage, it may nonetheless be damaging, in response to individuals who have served in public well being roles in authorities.
“Advisers like Scott Atlas have demonstrated the significant influence they can wield without congressional oversight, raising fears of misinformation and harm,” Trump’s personal surgeon normal, Dr. Jerome Adams, wrote in an electronic mail, referring to Trump’s former COVID-19 pandemic advisor, a radiologist with no background in infectious illness, who advocated for the broadly discredited herd immunity technique.
Adams stated he believed it was unlikely that Kennedy could possibly be appointed to steer a serious well being company as a result of he has no medical experience, it will seemingly be troublesome for him to move a background examine for a prime secret clearance and he’d seemingly lack assist in Congress — although Trump circumvented the background examine system throughout his first administration and stocked his Cupboard with performing officers who had not obtained congressional approval.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group has a lawsuit pending in opposition to information organizations together with The Related Press, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to establish misinformation, together with about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on depart from the group however is listed as one in every of its attorneys within the lawsuit.
Republican lawmakers have lengthy loved – and reciprocated – assist from pharmaceutical corporations, even vowing to dismantle a legislation signed by Democratic President Joe Biden that permits the federal government to barter the value of prescribed drugs for Medicare enrollees. Republicans have argued the legislation will damage the companies and stifle innovation within the business. However vaccine skepticism, rising throughout the nation, has turn into deeper amongst conservatives.
Along with folks’s well being and well-being, the chance that Kennedy’s affect would end in debunked concepts like a vaccine hyperlink to autism being once more dredged up and losing time, power and cash disheartened public well being advocates.
“Trump helped bring the vaccine to market, and he took the vaccine. … I don’t know why he’s giving this person this mouthpiece,” stated Amy Pisani, CEO of Vaccinate Your Household, noting Trump’s Operation Warp Pace helped convey the COVID-19 vaccine to market, although Kennedy has relentlessly attacked it.
Vaccinate Your Household is a nonpartisan group co-founded by former first girl Rosalynn Carter and former Arkansas first girl Betty Bumpers that has labored on vaccine applications with each Republican and Democratic presidential administrations for the previous 30 years.
“I don’t want to go back 30 years to fighting the anti-vaccine movement again,” Pisani stated. “To go back in time and waste millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on this witch hunt again is just untenable.”
