5 Of The Wildest Concepts Floated By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday. If confirmed, the company that oversees the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration, and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being can be run by a vaccine-skeptic who has repeatedly pledged to overtake the nation’s well being requirements.

Listed here are a few of Kennedy’s sweeping concepts for the nation throughout Trump’s second time period:

Kennedy has pledged the upcoming Trump administration would advise “all U.S. water programs” to take away fluoride from public water, claiming the mineral “is an industrial waste” linked to “arthritis, bone fractures, bone most cancers, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental issues, and thyroid illness.”

That’s not true at levels beneficial by the Environmental Safety Company that had been lowered in 2015. The Nationwide Institutes of Well being outlines some well being dangers of excessive exposure to fluoride at larger ranges, which might result in uncommon unwanted effects. The NIH stated that some proof confirmed extreme publicity led to lower IQ in children however cited consultants as saying the proof was “weak and methodologically flawed.”

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention stated there’s no convincing evidence linking antagonistic well being results to fluoride consumption at beneficial quantities.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that has been added to a lot of the nation’s consuming water for many years and has been confirmed to dramatically scale back tooth decay. A 2017 research additionally discovered the fluoridation program saves People more than $6 billion in dental prices.

Fluoridation has confirmed so profitable that the CDC lists it as one of many 10 greatest public health achievements of the twentieth century, alongside vaccination and the popularity of tobacco as a well being hazard.

Whereas Trump has expressed support for Kennedy’s stance, the president doesn’t have the power to ban fluoride in all public consuming water, which is beneath native, not federal, purview.

Kennedy is among the nation’s leading skeptics of vaccines, spreading conspiracy theories and junk science whereas claiming “no vaccine” is protected and efficient. He’s the founding father of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and has peddled debunked claims that inoculations trigger autism. Kennedy has additionally linked federal vaccination packages to the Holocaust.

All of these statements have been rejected by profession well being officers, who level to vaccines’ efficacy to eradicate smallpox, forestall hundreds of thousands of deaths from transmissible illness like measles and see the rates of polio fall 99% since 1988, based on the World Well being Group.

Trump himself couldn’t singlehandedly ban a vaccine, though he might exert stress on federal companies that approve them. And putting in Kennedy as the pinnacle of the company that oversees the CDC and the NIH has anxious well being advocates.

Kennedy has insisted he has not particularly referred to as for an finish to vaccination, and he has pledged not to ban them. However his longstanding claims that federal officers have muddled security information has troubled well being officers.

Mandy Cohen, the director of the CDC, told The Washington Put up she was deeply involved by his choice.

“I don’t need to go backwards and see youngsters or adults endure or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work,” she advised the paper.

Kennedy has made broad pledges to take away processed meals from college lunches and restrict using meals dyes. He just lately went on MSNBC to lambast colourful breakfast cereals, asking: “Why do we’ve got Froot Loops on this nation which have 18 or 19 substances and also you go to Canada and it’s acquired two or three?”

That’s not correct: Froot Loops in Canada have an analogous variety of substances to these bought within the U.S. However Canada has restricted using sure meals dyes. Regardless, the FDA says the artificial food dyes it’s permitted are protected primarily based on a “totality of scientific proof.”

He additionally attacked Trump’s personal weight loss program, saying the “stuff that he eats is admittedly, like, unhealthy.”

“Marketing campaign meals is all the time unhealthy, however the meals that goes onto that airplane is, like, simply poison,” Kennedy stated throughout a latest interview. “You will have a selection between — you don’t have the selection, you’re both given KFC or Massive Macs. That’s, like, whenever you’re fortunate, after which the remainder of the stuff I take into account type of inedible.”

Kennedy just lately advised a reporter he believes entire departments of the Food and Drug Administration “must go.” He particularly referred to as out the diet division on the company, claiming consultants there weren’t “doing their job” and “not defending our youngsters.”

He went on and stated he would root out unidentified corruption in federal companies: “As soon as they’re not corrupt, as soon as People are getting good indicators and so they’re allowed to make their very own selections, they’re going to get loads more healthy.”

Kennedy has additionally espoused the benefits of uncooked milk in opposition to authorities recommendation. The FDA warns the product, which isn’t pasteurized, has typically been linked to outbreaks of sickness.

He stated final month different gadgets in his sights embody the “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, uncooked milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, nutritional vitamins, clear meals, sunshine, train, nutraceuticals and anything that advances human well being and might’t be patented by Pharma.”

Within the waning days of his marketing campaign, Trump stated he would endow Kennedy with the power to “go wild” on well being as a part of his imaginative and prescient to Make America Nice, and Wholesome, Once more. That included a broad pledge to be in control of “ladies’s well being.”

The dimensions of his potential position at HHS will put many different sides of on a regular basis life beneath his purview, with many questions on how he’ll act as Republicans proceed to focus on access to abortion, health care for transgender youth and the Affordable Care Act.

“We now have a generational alternative to convey collectively the best minds in science, drugs, business, and authorities to place an finish to the power illness epidemic,” Kennedy wrote Thursday. “I’ll present People with transparency and entry to all the information to allow them to make knowledgeable selections for themselves and their households.”