Antonia Mufarech, Bloomberg News
Donald Trump's election victory opens the door for vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to play a big role in government and dramatically change the country's health practices.
The former presidential candidate emerged as a number one voice within the anti-vaccination movement throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as he questioned the security of vaccinations. He can also be an opponent of fluoridation of drinking water, a measure that has improved the oral health of thousands and thousands of Americans.
“RFK Jr. is probably the best-funded and most influential anti-vaxxer and anti-science conspiracy theorist in the world,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of worldwide health law at Georgetown University. “And now he's likely to move into the White House at a high level – that should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who thinks health, safety and the environment are important.”
Kennedy said Trump had offered him “control of the public health agencies,” citing potential leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.
“He will help make America whole again,” Trump said of Kennedy in his victory speech on Wednesday. Trump said Kennedy should avoid oil and gas, but “otherwise you'll have a good time, Bobby.”
Trump has encouraged Kennedy, the son of the late U.S. attorney general and senator who was assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign, to deal with more specific issues.
“I said, 'Bobby, you work on women's health, you work on health, you work on what we eat,” Trump said at a rally in Macon, Georgia, on Sunday. “They work on pesticides. You work on everything.”
Experts and officials have previously raised concerns about Kennedy, saying his statements on vaccines and other pandemic-related topics were misleading and dangerous to public health. In July 2023, the Biden administration condemned comments by Kennedy that falsely claimed that Jewish and Chinese people were “most immune” to COVID-19.
Jason Schwartz, an associate professor on the Yale School of Public Health, said the United States is facing “a very significant change in the federal government's approach to public health and the priorities and actions of our state health departments.”
Even as Trump insisted in October 2020 that Americans were able to overcome the pandemic, his own health advisers continued to warn that essentially the most difficult months still lay ahead.
Kennedy has criticized how Anthony Fauci, the highest US infectious disease expert throughout the pandemic, has handled the crisis. In his book “The Real Anthony Fauci,” he accuses the previous head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of orchestrating “a historic coup against Western democracy.”
Kennedy recently wrote on the social media platform X that Trump would take motion to remove fluoride from public waters immediately after taking office. January twentieth. Trump then told NBC News that he had not yet spoken to Kennedy about fluoride, “but it sounds OK to me.”
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