Longtime anti-vaxxer and alleged whale head thief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would bring all kinds of baggage with him if he’s confirmed as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
RFK Jr. is already on a quest to revoke FDA approval for the polio vaccine, forcing President-elect Donald Trump to publicly affirm his support for the shot – however, Trump also said he’s opposed to vaccine mandates and promised to look into Kennedy’s long-disproven conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism.
Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, told KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 that if Kennedy takes his anti-vax quest to the FDA, there could be “major disruption of the vaccine infrastructure.”
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“What Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could say to the head of the FDA, ‘I don't think this vaccine has been studied well enough. I don't think there's been the right kind of placebo-controlled trials. And so I want to take them off the market until those trials are done,” he said.
Trump said Monday that Kennedy will be far less radical than people think, but Offit isn’t buying it.
“I think we should trust Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for what he said over the last 20 years,” he said. “I mean, just last year, he said he thinks no vaccine is a benefit. He thinks that the polio vaccine killed, in his words, many, many, many more people than it saved. He thinks that the COVID vaccine is the most dangerous vaccine ever invented. Why do we think that all goes away if he becomes Secretary of Health and Human Services?”
Offit said there have been 18 studies done all over the world to investigate a link between vaccines and autism, and in every study, there was no correlation. He said Kennedy “doesn’t believe the data because they don’t conform to a fixed hypothesis.”
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He also said that public health measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, like mask and vaccine mandates, were “seen by some as massive government overreach,” damaging trust in the health care system.
“But you know, this is a contagious disease,” he said. “Is it your right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection? I think no. I think you owe it to the people standing next to you on the elevator or in the bus who may not, you know, be able to get a vaccine because they're getting cancer chemotherapy or they're getting immune suppressive therapy for their rheumatological or autoimmune diseases. I mean, we are part of society, and I think you owe it to society to be protected and to protect those around you.”
Listen to the full episode above to hear from Rep. Kevin Kiley, who’s calling on Trump to derail California’s controversial high-speed rail project, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 every weekday at 2:30 p.m.
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