Prelude: A shift within the political heart of gravity of antivax and quackery
It’s the day earlier than the 2024 election, and, considering what to put in writing right this moment, I spotted that there was actually just one subject that I might tackle. I’ve mentioned many instances that this weblog strives to be nonpartisan however not apolitical. In spite of everything, selling science-based medication is not only a scientific and medical endeavor; additionally it is a political endeavor, provided that the federal authorities regulates and funds healthcare, drug approval, and nationwide public well being applications, whereas state governments regulate the follow of medication, as nicely figuring out vaccine necessities for varsity and numerous different medicine- and public health-related necessities and native governments have their very own legal guidelines and rules. Certainly, that’s the reason Jann Bellamy (and I) ceaselessly wrote about “legislative alchemy” designed to supply the imprimatur of the state on pseudoscientific and quack medical practices and specialties and, earlier than the pandemic, we used to put in writing recurrently about efforts to weaken or eradicate faculty vaccine mandates and the “right-to-try” motion, which was custom-designed to weaken the ability of the Meals and Drug Administration.
I’ll admit, nonetheless, that it’s change into more and more troublesome to stay completely nonpartisan, given the occasions of the final decade, however, much more, occasions because the pandemic hit practically 5 years in the past. Whereas there are nonetheless crunchy lefties selling numerous woo, together with various medication, antivaccinationism, unwarranted concern mongering about pesticides and “chemical substances” in meals, and false beliefs that, as an illustration, cellular phone radiation causes most cancers, by and enormous it’s troublesome to not discover that the ideological heart of gravity when it comes to hostility to science-based medication and science-based well being coverage has shifted far to the appropriate. I’ve described the way it’s a course of that I first began noticing 10-15 years in the past, as increasingly antivaxxers began selling conservative and right-leaning candidates; accelerated starting in 2015, when opposition to California regulation SB 277, which eradicated nonmedical exemptions to high school vaccine mandates galvanized the antivaccine motion to efficiently use the rhetoric of “freedom” and opposition to authorities overreach to draw conservatives; infested the Republican Occasion throughout the 2016 Presidential primaries and the 2018 midterms; and have become (for those who’ll excuse the time period) turbocharged after the pandemic, when opposition to non pharmaceutical public well being interventions like masking or faculty and enterprise closures, vaccine mandates, and principally any non-voluntary public well being interventions resulted within the fusion of the antivaccine motion with proper wing resistance to what it noticed as “tyranny.” As we’ve written about and the Conspirituality Podcast has documented during the last 5 years or so, principally loads of the New Age “spirituality” and quackery, together with the antivaccine motion, has shifted far to the appropriate, to the purpose that we see numerous pseudoscience and conspiracy theorists who was perceived as being on the left now absolutely MAGA and aligned with Donald Trump. Whether or not it’s because the grift is best there or due to a real ideological shift or each, it’s occurred, and I nonetheless haven’t determined what the largest issue was fueling this shift.
One such instance is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. After I first began writing about RFK Jr. practically 20 years in the past, he had simply “come out” as an antivaxxer, publishing his misleading conspiracy-fest of an article Lethal Immunity in Salon.com and Rolling Stone selling a conspiracy principle falsely claiming that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which had been utilized in many childhood vaccines till round 2001-2, was liable for an “epidemic” of autism that the CDC was masking up. (My deconstruction of the article was my first weblog put up ever to go viral.) It is perhaps laborious for our youthful readers to recall that, when RFK Jr. first launched his antivax campaign in 2015, he explicitly linked it to his earlier environmentalist activism combating air pollution and mercury contaminating water provides. It was simply the beginning of a few years of demonizing vaccines and selling antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Though I might see indicators of this in him earlier than the pandemic, the pandemic led RFK Jr. to embracing far proper actions. As you in all probability know, in 2023 RFK Jr. introduced that he was working for President. Nevertheless, by August, he suspended his marketing campaign and embraced Donald Trump, who promised him a serious position in his administration overseeing well being coverage. By September, RFK Jr. had coined the time period “Make America Wholesome Once more” (MAHA), an apparent homage to Donald Trump’s longstanding slogan “Make America Nice Once more” (MAGA), though in his MAHA manifesto he hid his antivax proclivities, which his antivax followers did discover and had been dismayed.
They shouldn’t have been. Over the past week it’s change into very clear that, had been RFK Jr. to be put in control of the federal well being equipment, both as Secretary of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) or in some “czar” position, it might be an extinction-level risk to science-based federal well being coverage, which might get replaced with pseudoscience, quackery, and conspiracy theories. After I first wrote about RFK Jr.’s antivax conspiracy-fest of an article 20 years in the past, by no means in my worst nightmares did I envision that he is perhaps on the cusp of being put in control of the nation’s healthcare coverage, regulatory, and analysis equipment. Worse, the masks is coming off, and it’s turning into terrifyingly clear what this would possibly imply.
Donald Trump: Letting RFK Jr. “go wild” on well being?
Final week, I wrote about what the “well being freedom” motion and its takeover of the Republican Occasion when it comes to something having to do with medication and public well being would possibly imply after I had come throughout a put up by RFK Jr. on X, the hellsite previously often called Twitter, saying that he would “declare struggle on The FDA”:
The complete model of this would possibly entail will be discovered right here; the CliffsNotes model follows. Principally, it might imply the dismantling of a regulatory and public well being equipment constructed up over a long time that, whereas flawed, has largely efficiently improved the well being of People and guarded them from unsafe drugs and meals. Nobody, least of all I, is saying that the system couldn’t use vital enchancment, presumably even main reform, however that’s not what RFK Jr. is about. What he’s about is tearing the system down.
The night time earlier than that put up went reside, Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Sq. Backyard that made the information due to the racist feedback of a few of his surrogates. Much less reported was one thing that Donald Trump promised his followers:
And we even have anyone that’s nice. And look, we’re not going to let him go too loopy, Elon, with the oil and fuel stuff. As a result of Robert F. Kennedy cares extra about human beings and well being and the atmosphere than anyone. And he’s going to be absolute. Having him is such an ideal honor. I’ve been pals of his for a very long time. And I’m going to let him go wild on well being. I’m going to let him go wild on the meals. I’m going to let him go wild on medication. The one factor I don’t suppose I’m going to let him even get close to is the liquid gold that we’ve underneath our toes. I don’t know, Elon. He may not like liquid gold. It’s oil and fuel. Typically known as oil and fuel. J. D. , I feel we’re going to need to maintain him away from the oil and fuel. What do you suppose, Howard? Sure?
However the place is Robert? He’s round. He gave an exquisite speech. And it’s an honor.
I have to admit that one comfort in all this, as minor as it’s, is that I do discover it relatively amusing that RFK Jr. willingly signed on to be a part of a marketing campaign through which Trump explicitly states that he can’t tackle the atmosphere—you recognize, the place his roots had been—if it interferes with the earnings of the fossil gasoline business. On condition that a lot of public well being is expounded to the atmosphere, that could be a relatively giant no-fly zone for RFK Jr. I suppose, in his lust for energy, he considers it an appropriate worth to pay, however who is aware of? Be that as it could, what do “go wild on well being” and “go wild on medication” imply on this context?
After I initially began writing about RFK Jr.’s having joined Group Trump, I feared that he would need to be HHS Secretary, as a result of the Division of Well being and Human Companies oversees the overwhelming majority of the federal well being and medical equipment, together with Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies (which oversees the large Medicare and Medicaid applications), the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, and extra. Nevertheless, a dialogue with a educated particular person advised to me that he could be “unconfirmable.” My retort was that, sure, if someway the Democrats retained management of the Senate he wouldn’t be confirmable, but when Republicans took management I’d not be in the least assured that he wouldn’t be confirmed. That being mentioned, apparently he is not going to be HHS Secretary. Moderately, as a current information report in The Washington Publish suggests, he could be extra of a “well being czar”:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to have vital management over well being and meals security in a possible Trump administration, with discussions about some Cupboard and company officers reporting to him, in response to 4 folks conversant in the planning course of who spoke on the situation of anonymity to element personal conversations.
Kennedy has been privately assembly with Trump transition officers to assist draw up an agenda for a brand new administration, which might contain the longtime anti-vaccine activist taking a task as a White Home czar relatively than making an attempt to win Senate affirmation to steer an company, the folks mentioned. Kennedy and his advisers have additionally been drafting 30-, 60- and 90-day plans for what they want to accomplish after Trump is inaugurated, in response to one particular person conversant in the planning course of.
“The president has requested me to wash up corruption and conflicts on the companies and to finish the power illness epidemic,” Kennedy mentioned in an interview Wednesday. “He needs measurable ends in two years and to return these companies to their lengthy traditions of gold-standard evidence-based science and medication.”
And:
Kennedy informed his personal supporters in a Zoom name Monday that Trump has promised him “management of the general public well being companies,” singling out the Division of Well being and Human Companies and its subagencies, and in addition naming the Division of Agriculture. The companies are collectively liable for implementing meals and public well being rules; approving vaccines, drugs and health-care units; implementing security measures in food-processing services; steering billions of {dollars} in federal analysis initiatives; and overseeing Medicare, Medicaid and the Reasonably priced Care Act, amongst many different duties.
“Lengthy traditions of gold normal evidence-based science and medication”? Anybody who’s paid consideration to RFK Jr. through the years is aware of that RFK Jr. is just about the alternative of evidence-based science and medication. He has been spreading antivaccine misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories for shut to twenty years now, and, extra just lately, has more and more entered the “wellness” grift aspect of issues. To examine him in control of a lot of the well being coverage, science, and analysis equipment of the federal authorities ought to actually terrify you. Actually it terrifies me.
Accordingly, RFK Jr. has apparently been suggesting picks for key posts who’re in step with his “pondering,” equivalent to it’s. The record will embrace some names that must be acquainted to our readers:
Kennedy has been working to establish doable personnel for a future Trump administration, an inventory that Trump advisers say consists of Casey and Calley Means, siblings and health-care entrepreneurs who’ve change into shut advisers to Kennedy; Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins College doctor who suggested the Trump White Home on health-care worth transparency; and former Trump well being officers equivalent to former Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention director Robert Redfield and former Division of Well being and Human Companies spokesman Michael Caputo.
The Means siblings, Makary, Redfield and Caputo have been working with Kennedy to roll out his “Make America Wholesome Once more” (MAHA) platform, an initiative to deal with power illness and childhood sicknesses — and a deliberate riff on Trump’s “Make America Nice Once more” (MAGA) slogan. None of them responded to questions on their potential roles in a future Trump administration, with a number of declining to remark.
Dr. Martin “Marty” Makary was, earlier than he grew to become a COVID-19 contrarian who has appeared ceaselessly on proper wing media shops minimizing the pandemic and advocating a “Nice Barrington Declaration”-style “let ‘er rip” strategy tot the pandemic claiming that “we’ll have herd immunity any day now” whereas concern mongering concerning the vaccines, first made a reputation for himself publishing a few of the most risibly unhealthy science I’ve ever seen. Sadly, that terrible science, which claimed that medical errors are the third main reason behind dying within the US (they aren’t—removed from it), “caught,” to the purpose that it’s change into a generally cited (and completely faulty) factoid that even individuals who ought to know higher typically casually cite when discussing the shortcomings of our medical system. Principally, like RFK Jr.’s resistance to vaccines, the perspective promoted by Makary and his allies have devastated public well being—and didn’t work. Really, provided that Dr. Makary is, like me, a surgical oncologist, each time I talk about him I really feel like Sylvester Jr. within the previous Looney Tunes cartoons, placing a paper bag over my head in excessive embarrassment and disgrace as a result of his father.
Casey and Calley Means, in fact, I’ve mentioned earlier than. They’re a brother-sister workforce. Calley is an “entrepreneur” who runs a enterprise primarily based on attracting federal well being financial savings funds to buy various medication therapies. His sister Dr. Casey Means is a doctor who skilled to change into an otolaryngologist, however dropped out of her residency in her closing yr. (Who does that, so near the end line?) In any case, her firm promotes “metabolic well being” as the reply to all illnesses. From my perspective, they’re merely well being grifters who’ve seized upon the shift of the political heart of gravity of the wellness motion as a way to latch themselves onto Donald Trump and generate profits promoting their wares to (largely) the appropriate. As for Dr. Redfield, he began out semi-reasonable (and provaccine) when he served as CDC Director throughout the Trump Administration, however has of late gone additional and additional down the MAGA conspirituality rabbit gap, selling doubt about COVID-19 vaccines and, in fact, lab leak conspiracy theories. Lastly, again in 2020, Michael Caputo, who on the time was Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs at HHS, publicly acknowledged some weird conspiracy theories, equivalent to accusing the “Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention of harboring a ‘resistance unit’ decided to undermine President Trump, even when that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 dying toll,” led “efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to suit Mr. Trump’s pandemic narrative,” promoted disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, and is maybe finest identified for having written an e-mail through which he acknowledged that “we would like them contaminated” as a way to pursue “pure herd immunity.”
It’s fairly a motley crew, a rogues’ gallery of COVID-19 antivax disinformation. However what would they do?
A dagger aimed toward federal well being coverage and public well being
So now we all know a bit concerning the proposed position for RFK Jr and about a few of the characters he would possibly usher in to run HHS, the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, and CMS, however what wouldn’t it imply? One indication got here within the type of a put up like this:
…which had been mentioned in tales printed over the weekend, like this one:
As president, Mr. Trump wouldn’t have the ability to order states and municipalities to take away fluoride from their water provides; fluoridation is a matter of native management.
However a presidential pronouncement would inject the White Home right into a debate that stretches again to the Fifties, when conspiracy theories swirled round fluoridation, with critics claiming it was a Communist plot to poison People’ brains — a view that was memorably parodied in Stanley Kubrick’s movie “Dr. Strangelove.”
I like that the reporter talked about considered one of my favourite films of all time, and, actually, we all know 60 years in the past, when this film was launched, that this anti-fluoride concern mongering of the type that RFK Jr. is now resurrecting was a conspiracy principle not primarily based in proof. Fluoride is protected and has been one of the efficient public well being interventions ever. Once more, states decide whether or not to fluoridate their water and what focus to make use of, however a federal official recommending towards it might doubtless result in states whose present governments are aligned with the MAGA motion deciding to cease fluoridating their water, doubtless with predictably unhealthy outcomes when it comes to dental well being of their populations, particularly youngsters.
Sadly, not like common readers of this weblog, there are lots of people who don’t know so much about RFK Jr., haven’t paid consideration to his antivax activism, and had been perhaps even reassured by his deliberately not mentioning vaccines in his MAHA manifesto, even when his personal followers weren’t and had been dismayed. Bear in mind, in 2019, a mere three months earlier than a pandemic was declared by the World Well being Group, RFK Jr. straight contributed to vaccine concern mongering in Samoa at the same time as a measles epidemic that may declare the lives of over 80 youngsters was raging. Earlier than that he used to routinely examine vaccines and the vaccination program to the Holocaust. That’s, in fact, why his followers had been so dissatisfied when he first printed his MAHA manifesto that disregarded any point out of vaccines. In case you had been in any approach reassured by that, you shouldn’t be.
For instance, over the weekend tales like this one have been printed:
Florida’s prime well being official, whose tenure has been marked by his warnings towards vaccines, threats to TV stations for working abortion adverts and frequent clashes with public well being specialists, has emerged as a candidate to run the Division of Well being and Human Companies in a possible Trump administration, in response to two folks conversant in the method.
Joseph A. Ladapo is on an inventory of HHS secretary candidates being assembled by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been charged with serving to choose employees for the nation’s well being and meals companies if Donald Trumpwins workplace, in response to the folks, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain the planning course of. HHS is liable for overseeing Medicare, Medicaid and the Reasonably priced Care Act; approving vaccines, drugs and health-care units; coordinating responses to illness outbreaks; and quite a few different priorities throughout its practically $2 trillion finances.
Ladapo, who has served as Florida’s surgeon basic since 2021, has repeatedly defied public well being practices — equivalent to failing to urge mother and father to vaccinate their youngsters or maintain unvaccinated college students dwelling from faculty throughout a current measles outbreak — drawing scorn from public well being specialists who say his choices have imperiled Florida residents.
We’ve been writing about how unhealthy Dr. Joseph Ladapo has been relating to vaccines going again a number of years. You would possibly do not forget that Ladapo first got here to prominence throughout the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as a founding member of America’s Frontline Medical doctors, which made a reputation for itself in that horrible first summer time of the pandemic by touting hydroxychloroquine as a miracle remedy for COVID-19 and later turned to telehealth grift promoting prescriptions for ivermectin to remedy COVID-19, and a signatory of the Nice Barrington Declaration, the doc printed by contrarian scientists introduced collectively by a right-wing suppose tank to advocate a social Darwinist “let ‘er rip” strategy to the pandemic with poorly outlined “centered safety” for these most in danger for extreme illness and dying from the pandemic. In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Ladapo Surgeon Basic, a place that put him in control of the Florida Division of Well being, the place he proceeded to do all the pieces in his energy to impede public well being responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and to unfold concern and uncertainty about COVID-19 vaccines, even when he needed to prepare dinner the numbers and lie with statistics to do it. Within the meantime, he continued to advertise COVID misinformation, even going as far as to refuse to advocate COVID-19 vaccines to virtually anybody this yr, the primary time, so far as I’m conscious, {that a} state authorities well being division didn’t advocate an FDA-approved and CDC-recommended vaccine towards something. I feared and speculated that Ladapo would possibly rating a excessive rating federal place associated to well being coverage if Donald Trump had been elected. Ladapo is, in spite of everything, one of many golden docs within the MAGA antivax motion. Now, if Trump wins, that concern is prone to change into actuality:
The prospect of a vaccine skeptic equivalent to Ladapo in a nationwide well being position has alarmed public well being specialists, pointing to his choice to warn Florida residents towards the mRNA coronavirus vaccines whereas citing debunked claims. No different state public well being officer has adopted his lead.
It’s worse than that, although:
A co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition workforce mentioned Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. needs 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 concerning the vaccine schedule and the disproven principle that vaccines trigger autism. Trump has talked usually about how Kennedy, who suspended his personal presidential bid and endorsed him in August, could have an enormous position to play if the previous president returns to the White Home.
Whereas Lutnick mentioned Kennedy wouldn’t be chosen as secretary of well being and human providers, he was not particular about what Kennedy’s position is perhaps. Lutnick made the feedback the identical day that Kennedy informed NewsNation that Trump requested him to “reorganize” companies 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 companies underneath the Division of Agriculture.
In case you’ve learn this weblog and/or my not-so-secret different weblog, you recognize that antivaxxers use knowledge from vaccine security databases the identical approach {that a} drunk makes use of a lightweight pole: For assist, not illumination. Simply have a look at Steve Kirsch and his more and more ridiculous torturing of any knowledge that he can get his palms on, all designed to not decide if vaccines are protected, however relatively to show, by any means essential, together with torturing the info, that vaccines are harmful and ineffective. You may make certain that, ought to RFK Jr. acquire entry to federal vaccine and medicine security databases, what’s going to comply with will likely be a tsunami of poor high quality and deceptive research designed to exhibit that vaccines trigger autism, childhood power well being issues, and all method of well being points, and that they don’t work. Rely on it. That’s what his antivax org Kids’s Well being Protection has completed for years. Why wouldn’t it be any totally different if RFK Jr. features energy of the large federal well being equipment. Trump’s personal co-chair for his transition workforce has informed you what RFK Jr. needs to do. He needs to “show” that vaccines are unsafe, as a prelude to taking all of them off the market:
Lutnick, the CEO of the monetary providers firm Cantor Fitzgerald, informed CNN that Kennedy needs entry to knowledge “so he can say these items are unsafe” and that may cease the gross sales.
“He says, for those who give me the info, all I need is the info and I’ll tackle the info and present that it’s not protected. After which for those who pull the product legal responsibility, the businesses will yank these vaccines proper off of the market. In order that’s his level,” Lutnick mentioned.
It was unclear what knowledge Lutnick was referring to since intensive knowledge and analysis on vaccine security is publicly obtainable.
Severely, the title of an article printed the opposite day by NBC Information isn’t an exaggeration: Trump workforce absolutely embraces RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism. If something, it’s an understatement, as a result of RFK Jr.’s antivaccine views are usually not “vaccine skepticism.” (I hate it when editors and journalists describe his antivax conspiracy theories that approach.) Extra acceptable is that this headline for an article printed over the weekend in The Intelligencer, a piece of New York Journal, Trump Transition Chair Blurts Out Plan to Finish All Vaccines: Kook Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to steer Trump public well being:
Within the interview, Lutnick calmly repeated a sequence of vaccine-skeptic speaking factors. He didn’t even restrict his vaccine skepticism to the COVID-19 vaccine, which is protected and efficient, however to all vaccines, which he painted as unregulated, harmful, and a part of a for-profit conspiracy between the pharmaceutical business and the federal authorities. The steps he proposed could be to provide Kennedy knowledge about vaccines, and if Kennedy decides they aren’t protected, which he already has, the FDA might pull approval.
Precisely. If Trump is elected, RFK Jr. would possibly lastly have the chance to appreciate his longtime dream of eliminating vaccines from the market. Certain, he’ll deny that that’s what he needs and declare that he’s “not antivaccine” or, much more risibly, that he’s “fiercely provaccine,” although his historical past demonstrates that he’s neither.
And:
What is much extra doubtless, Semafor notes, is that Kennedy could possibly be an “adviser or czar, positions that may not require Senate affirmation. That form of put up would enable Kennedy to wield affect over the broad swath of companies he has taken an curiosity in (he has named CDC, FDA, NIH, USDA, and “others”). Kennedy couldn’t form coverage in all these companies from anybody cupboard place, however he might accomplish that as an adviser or czar with a broad portfolio.
The form of havoc this association might wreak is nearly unattainable to fathom. The federal authorities performs an important position in authorizing vaccines and prescribed drugs. It’s true that the federal government’s scientific authority isn’t omniscient, and there are sufficient instances through which scientific authorities have imposed political judgment rather than proof to boost ample grounds for treating any of their pronouncements with some skepticism.
However justified skepticism is one factor. Subjecting public-health choices to RFK Jr.’s cracked worldview is one thing else altogether. And the method Lutnick proposed to Collins — that the FDA might withdraw approval for a set of life-saving vaccines as a result of Kennedy decides the info is inadequate — is a glimpse right into a public-health nightmare.
It’s extra than simply vaccines and fluoride, although. If Trump wins and RFK Jr. features the ability he seeks, the complete federal public well being institution could possibly be reorganized and recast, to the detriment of public well being in all places:
Mission 2025 describes the C.D.C. as “maybe essentially the most incompetent and conceited company within the federal authorities,” and requires it to be divided into two entities.
One could be accountable just for publishing knowledge gathered from states and different sources. The opposite would retain a “severely confined means to make coverage suggestions” underneath the auspices of political leaders.
“He’ll go down the trail that he began, which is to totally politicize the C.D.C.,” mentioned Lawrence Gostin, the director of the W.H.O. Collaborating Heart on World Well being Regulation, referring to a second Trump administration.
Precisely. The article mentions that loads of this might require Congressional approval and that “reasonable Republicans” would possibly balk at going to date, however there’s a widespread perception within the GOP that the CDC has “gone too far,” which has led to a want to “pare it again” to cease it from investigating or intervening in professional public well being points whose findings are usually not in step with MAGA politics, equivalent to gun violence and the like.
Worst of all, nonetheless, RFK Jr. would have enormous affect over the CDC, significantly provided that the HHS Secretary appoints the members of the Advisory Fee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the committee that formally recommends the childhood and grownup vaccine schedule. Whereas it’s true that states decide which vaccines are included in class vaccine mandates, typically they take the CDC’s lead, following its suggestions, that are made and periodically up to date by ACIP. One can think about an HHS Secretary underneath Trump appointing antivaxxers to ACIP, which might wreak havoc with our vaccination program.
Whether or not it’s perceived as partisan or not for me to say it, I’m going to say it anyway Trump wins the election tomorrow and truly retains his phrase to provide RFK Jr. the portfolio and affect that he’s claiming (which is, given Trump’s historical past, not a given), will probably be an extinction-level risk to public well being within the US. If Trump wins and RFK Jr. manages to perform solely a fraction of what he needs to perform when it comes to coverage with respect to vaccines, fluoride, drug regulation, and public well being, in 4 years, People will likely be much less wholesome and sicker. Removed from “making America wholesome once more,” RFK Jr.’s MAHA would have the potential to make us sicker than ever.