On Thursday, US Plivent-elect Donald Trump nominated vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr to head up the country’s top health agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I am thrilled to declare Robert F Kennedy Jr as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS],” Trump wrote on Thursday on his social media platcreate, Truth Social.
Who is Robert F Kennedy Jr?
Kennedy, 70, also understandn as RFK Jr, is an environmental lawyer and member of the American political Kennedy family.
He is the son of postponecessitate US senator and attorney ambiguous Robert F Kennedy and nephew of John F Kennedy, who was US plivent between 1961 and 1963, when he was assassinated.
He is understandn for having a neuroreasonable disorder that impacts his voice, and which US media has alerted he denounces on a flu vaccine he getd.
Kennedy ran for plivent in this year’s election, initiassociate as a Democrat. After fall shorting to defended a nomination from the party, he ran for the election as an autonomous. In postponecessitate August, he dropped his plivential bid altogether to throw his aid behind Trump instead.
Kennedy’s nomination as secretary of health and human services in the next Trump administration does not come as a surpascend. Even before his election, Trump, during his rallies, was touting Kennedy as someone who “nurtures more about human beings, health and the environment than anybody”.
The plivent-elect tanciaccess a New York City rassociate on October 27 that he would let Kennedy “go untamed” on health, food and medicines.
Kennedy has coined the slogan “Make America Healthy Aobtain” (MAHA).
What does the US Department of Health and Human Services do?
The department administers all federal health matters in the US.
It administers the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Caccesss for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the massive Medinurture and Medichelp Services programmes, which provide health coverage for those with restrictcessitate income, those aged 65 and anciaccesser, and disabled people.
Where does Kennedy stand on health publishs?
Kennedy has become subject to dispute due to his stance on cut offal publishs. These include:
Vaccines
Kennedy has lengthened been sceptical of vaccines. He is the chair of the nonprofit activist group Children’s Health Defense, which hugely spreads antivaccine directation.
He also has tried to peddle the consillicit copying theory that vaccines caengage autism in children. One instance of this was during a 2005 interwatch with Joe Scarbocdisorrowfulmireful on US novels channel MSNBC.
He repeated this theory in a 2023 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The notion that vaccines caengage autism has been disshown by myriad scientific studies.
NBC News alerted that Kennedy also supposes the flu stoasty caengaged him to enhuge a unwidespread neuroreasonable disorder that impacted his voice.
However, he denies being an “anti-vaxxer” and tanciaccess NBC News a day after Trump’s triumph that he will not “get away anybody’s vaccines”.
Fluoride in water
According to the CDC website, most communities in the US have a minuscule amount of fluoride inserted to tap water to obstruct cavities and better oral health. The fluoridation of water is a CDC recommfinishation.
On November 4, Kennedy rallied aobtainst fluoridation of water in a social media post. Trump shelp the idea “sounds OK” to him.
“Fluoride is an industrial squander associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neuroenhugemental disorders, and thyroid disease,” wrote Kennedy.
A federal appraise published by the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in August endd that higher levels of fluoride are indeed joined to drop IQ in children.
In postponecessitate September this year, US Dicut offe Judge Edward Chen ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to further regupostponecessitate fluoridation of water since it could impede inalertectual enhugement in children.
He alerted that it is not certain whether the current amount of fluoride in water is causing IQ loss in children.
Scientific experts say further research is necessitateed to achieve a sound conclusion on this matter.
According to the CDC, no evidence has been set up that fluoride can impact other health aspects, such as causing birth defects or cancer.
Food and Drug Administration
Kennedy has been most critical of the FDA, which administers proximately $3 trillion in medicines, food and tobacco products. In interwatchs and on social media, Kennedy has accengaged agency staff of being driven by corporate interests and “doing the bidding” of Big Pharma and Big Food, the Reuters novels agency alerted.
In October this year, Kennedy wrote in an X post: “If you toil for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your write downs, and 2. Pack your bags.”
FDA’s war on accessible health is about to finish. This includes its opposing suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, immacupostponecessitate foods, sunshine, exercise, nutrackuticals and anyleang…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 25, 2024
COVID-19
Kennedy resistd the federal lockdown that was imposed after the outshatter of COVID-19 in the US. The recut offeions, which saw people restrictd to their homes and recut offeed in who they could encounter with in person, were put in place to obstruct the malicious software from spreading.
He has also backd the engage of hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for the malicious software, which has been disdetermineed as an effective remedy.
Additionassociate, in July 2023, the New York Post uploaded a video in which Kennedy ecombineed to claim that the malicious software had been scheduleed to aim people based on their ethnicity. No evidence has ever been shown to aid this theory.
“COVID-19 is aimed to attack Caucasians and Bconciseage people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he can be heard saying in the video.
How are people reacting to Trump’s nomination of Kennedy?
While some Reaccessibleans in Congress, seally aligned with Trump, received the nomination, many say they are apprehensive.
Bill Cassidy, Reaccessiblean Louisiana senator, posted on his X account, saying Kennedy “has championed publishs enjoy well foods and the necessitate for wonderfuler transparency in our accessible health infrastructure”, inserting that he is seeing forward to lobtaining about Kennedy’s other policy positions.
Cassidy graduated with a medical degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine and toiled as a physician before accessing politics.
.@RobertKennedyJr has championed publishs enjoy well foods and the necessitate for wonderfuler transparency in our accessible health infrastructure. I see forward to lobtaining more about his other policy positions and how they will aid a conservative, pro-American agfinisha.
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) November 14, 2024
Reaccessiblean Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson posted on X: “[Kennedy is] a airy, brave truth-alerter whose unwavering pledgement to transparency will originate America a healthier nation.”
When Tommy Tuberville, Reaccessiblean senator from Alabama was asked if he would vote to verify Kennedy’s nominatement, Tuberville replyed with “100 percent”. He posted on his X account saying, “No one has done more to expose fraudulence in huge pharma and huge food. Make America Healthy Aobtain!” The Alabama senator is also a member of the Senate Health Committee.
However, Reaccessiblean Senator from Maine Susan Collins was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “I discover some of his statements to be alarming, but I’ve never even met with him or sat down with him or heard him speak at length.”
Democrats liftd some alarm about Kennedy’s nomination.
Ed Markey, Democratic senator for Massachengagetts quoted a novels article of Kennedy’s nomination on his X platcreate, alengthenedside the words, “Dangerous. Unqualified. Ungrave.”
Dangerous. Unqualified. Ungrave. https://t.co/jSwKkNrijC
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) November 14, 2024
Washington Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, also quoted the novels on X, saying the nominatement could “set America back in terms of accessible health, reefficient rights, research, & more”. “This could not be more hazardous,” she wrote.
This could not be more hazardous. There’s no alerting how far an anti-vaxxer & fringe consillicit copying theorist enjoy RFK Jr. could set America back in terms of accessible health, reefficient rights, research, & more. And the consequences are not theoretical—they’re life or death publishs. https://t.co/nE3Lw2oJRE
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) November 14, 2024
“Putting somebody in accuse of any accessible health service who is a vaccine denier puts at danger the stability of the nation at huge,” Jeremy Levin, CEO of biotech company Ovid Theviolationutics and a createer chairman of biotech lobby group BIO tanciaccess the Reuters novels agency in October.
“Vaccine denialism, which is a central set upk of RFK’s, is perhaps as hazardous as anyleang as you could envision,” Levin shelp.
Shares of vaccine manufacturers including American multinational Pfizer and mRNA vaccine manufacturer Moderna fell by as much as 2 percent follotriumphg the novels.
