Donald Trump has promised to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a major role overseeing public health, and an expert shuddered at what that could mean for Americans.
The president-elect has said he would allow Kennedy to “go wild” on health, food and medicine in some unspecified role in his second administration, and public health expert Dr. Paul Offit appeared Friday morning on CNN to discuss the dangers posed by the vaccine opponent’s plans.
“To be honest, I can’t believe we are having this conversation,” said Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital, Philadelphia. “If you do know the science and technological advances have allowed us to live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago. Now you have this man, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a science denialist, a virulent anti-vaccine activist and a conspiracy theorist, who will have some sway over public health.”
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“Nothing good can come of that,” the physician added. “He denies those advances, he simply declares his own scientific truths. It’s a dangerous moment.”
Kennedy told a reporter that he would not ban vaccines but would instead allow people to make that choice for themselves, and Offit lambasted his reasoning.
“He said ‘if vaccines are working for some people,'” said Offit, who helped develop an effective vaccine for rotavirus. “The polio vaccine has virtually eliminated a virus that caused 30,000 cases of paralysis and 1,500 deaths a year. [Other vaccines] virtually eliminated the 20,000 to 25,000 cases of meningitis and bloodstream infections. The diphtheria vaccine has eliminated what was the most common killer of teenagers. The pertussis or whooping cough vaccine has virtually eliminated 8,000 deaths. If vaccines are working? That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“I mean, he is a conspiracy theorist,” Offit added. “You labeled him a vaccine skeptic. He’s not a vaccine skeptic, I’m a vaccine skeptic. Everybody who sits around the table at the FDA advisory committee is a skeptic. Show us the data, show us the data – prove it is safe and effective. He’s not a skeptic, he’s a cynic who doesn’t believe those data. He thinks there’s a conspiracy to hide the truth, making him a dangerous man.”
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