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In certainly one of his most controversial Cupboard picks, President-elect Donald Trump mentioned he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to guide the Division of Well being and Human Companies.
Kennedy is a longtime spreader of inaccurate details about vaccines, and we’ve written about lots of his claims, notably after Kennedy entered politics in April 2023 as a Democratic challenger to President Joe Biden. That October, he switched parties to run as an unbiased, earlier than dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Trump in August in trade for a possible position within the administration.
Kennedy is an environmental lawyer and founding father of Kids’s Well being Protection, a nonprofit that is among the most prolific sources of vaccine misinformation. In maybe the clearest instance of hurt, Kennedy’s vaccine misinformation contributed to a measles outbreak in American Samoa in 2019 that led to the deaths of 83 people, most of them youthful than 5 years outdated.
Since becoming a member of Trump, Kennedy has spearheaded the “Make America Healthy Again” marketing campaign, which is centered on the laudable aim of decreasing continual illness. However a closer take a look at Kennedy’s statements present that the MAHA platform shouldn’t be all the time evidence-based.
In an Oct. 25 X post, Kennedy wrote that the “FDA’s battle on public well being is about to finish,” earlier than accusing the company of “aggressive suppression” of a litany of therapies or merchandise, a number of of which both lack scientific support for his or her use or could also be dangerous, together with raw, or unpasteurized, milk and off-label use of the medicine ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Each medicine are efficient for different ailments however have repeatedly failed to assist with COVID-19 in scientific trials.
“For those who work for the FDA and are a part of this corrupt system, I’ve two messages for you: 1. Protect your data, and a couple of. Pack your baggage,” he continued.
It stays to be seen whether or not Kennedy, who has additionally endorsed a wide range of conspiracy theories, can have sufficient Senate assist to be confirmed. Trump has additionally urged that he may bypass the chamber for a few of his nominees by making appointments when the Senate is in recess.
“The Security and Well being of all People is a very powerful position of any Administration, and HHS will play an enormous position in serving to be sure that everyone shall be protected against dangerous chemical substances, pollution, pesticides, pharmaceutical merchandise, and meals components which have contributed to the overwhelming Well being Disaster on this Nation,” Trump wrote in a Nov. 14 X post asserting the nomination. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these Businesses to the traditions of Gold Customary Scientific Analysis, and beacons of Transparency, to finish the Continual Illness epidemic, and to Make America Nice and Wholesome Once more!”
Because the nation’s high well being official, Kennedy could be in control of the very companies he has for years alleged are corrupt. The HHS secretary oversees 13 companies, most notably the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
HHS additionally contains the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies, the company that gives medical health insurance for older adults and low-income individuals, in addition to the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration and the federal government’s company for public well being emergencies, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. The latter encompasses the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which was a key a part of Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s profitable effort to develop secure and efficient COVID-19 vaccines in document time. Misusing information from a vaccine security surveillance system that may be underneath his purview as HHS secretary, Kennedy has falsely called the COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Whereas there are some limits on what Kennedy may have the ability to do as the pinnacle of HHS, he would possible wield important affect. He would have the ability to get rid of departments inside the FDA, as he has suggested, for instance. He additionally would have final say in who is chosen to affix the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the unbiased group of specialists that creates federal vaccine steering. On Nov. 9, he indicated that he would substitute 600 NIH workers a day after inauguration day.
Right here, we summarize our previous work fact-checking Kennedy’s claims about well being and science.
Vaccine Security
Kennedy has lengthy claimed to be “for” vaccine security moderately than against vaccines. Shortly earlier than and after Election Day, he has doubled down on this message.
“I’m not going to remove anyone’s vaccines,” he mentioned in a Nov. 6 interview with NBC Information, by which he proceeded to say that he would guarantee vaccine research had been accessible to the general public. “I’ve by no means been anti-vaccine.”
The identical day, Kennedy additionally told NPR that he wouldn’t take vaccines away, however wished to “be sure that People have good info. Proper now, the science on vaccine security, notably, has large deficits in it, and we’re going to verify these scientific research are performed and that folks could make knowledgeable decisions about their vaccinations and their youngsters’s vaccinations.”
This adopted an Oct. 30 CNN interview by which Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition workforce, denied that Kennedy would get — and even wished — the highest HHS place.
“Right here’s what he desires to do. He mentioned, ‘I need information, I simply need information,’ as a result of they block the information,” Lutnick said of Kennedy and vaccines. “He desires the information so he can say this stuff are unsafe.”
The issue with these feedback is that vaccine security research have been performed and People do have entry to that info. There’s no proof that any essential vaccine security info is being withheld from the general public.
As with all medical product, vaccines are usually not 100% secure. Many individuals expertise gentle, short-term negative effects, however severe negative effects are uncommon. A number of unbiased panels of scientists assist assessment the information on every vaccine to verify the advantages outweigh the dangers. A number of vaccine security monitoring techniques then look ahead to subsequent points. Regulators have removed or paused the usage of sure vaccines when severe negative effects too uncommon to have been detected in scientific trials come to mild.
Kennedy has additionally forged himself as an individual of science, each uniquely suited to deciphering scientific research — regardless of no scientific coaching — and willing to change his thoughts if proven a “well-founded study.”
“I’m an evidence-based individual,” he said in an interview in June 2023. “If I’m improper about one thing, I admit I’m improper after which I transfer on.”
However there may be little to recommend that both is true. When introduced with information exhibiting {that a} specific vaccine is secure, Kennedy has confirmed himself to be unmoved. He has been reciting the same debunked claims about vaccines and autism (see under) for practically 20 years, effectively after quite a few specialists and research have defined and proven that he’s improper. He incessantly misrepresents or cherry-picks scientific research to argue in opposition to vaccination, and his nonprofit regularly churns out content doing the identical.
In a July 2023 podcast, Kennedy admitted that he thought “no vaccine” is secure and efficient. 4 months later, in an interview with PBS, Kennedy falsely claimed that he had by no means mentioned that, all of the whereas repeating certainly one of his favourite vaccine claims — that vaccines are the “solely medical product … that’s allowed to get a license with out participating in security exams.”
All vaccines are tested for safety earlier than being approved or authorised. The protection testing, nonetheless, doesn’t have to incorporate a placebo-controlled trial utilizing water or saline. It’s because, as within the case of a more moderen model of an current vaccine, it might not make sense ethically or scientifically to make use of such a placebo. Non-placebo testing, notably, can be widespread when testing medicine, because the helpful comparability is commonly to a different treatment or commonplace of care.
In contrast with medicine or different medical merchandise, vaccines are arguably the most closely scrutinized for security. There’s additionally extra post-market monitoring for vaccines than for medicine.
Mockingly, Kennedy and his nonprofit incessantly distort information from one such monitoring system — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS — to argue that vaccination is unsafe.
As now we have defined before, VAERS is supposed to detect potential questions of safety rapidly. The system collects unverified experiences of well being issues that happen after vaccination from anybody, no matter whether or not a vaccine was a possible trigger. The system additionally works in tandem with different surveillance techniques and can’t by itself verify a security concern. Stories naturally go up when extra individuals get a sure vaccine, or if there may be extra curiosity in a brand new vaccine, as there was with the COVID-19 vaccines. These nuances, nonetheless, are sometimes misplaced on the general public, and the experiences, that are publicly accessible by means of a searchable database, are wrongly introduced as government-sourced proof that vaccines are harmful. Hundreds of stories on the Kids’s Well being Protection web site point out VAERS.
One other of Kennedy’s widespread traces of assault — additionally not too long ago repeated by Lutnik — is that vaccines are usually not secure as a result of vaccine corporations don’t have product legal responsibility. In actuality, vaccine makers do have some liability, as evidenced by the truth that Kennedy himself has sued some corporations.
Lawmakers did take away most legal responsibility in 1986 after growing litigation — a lot of it later discovered to be unwarranted — threatened the vaccine provide. An alternate compensation system was established for individuals with affordable claims of hurt. This was performed with the understanding that vaccines are useful to society however in uncommon situations do trigger severe negative effects. The existence of this system shouldn’t be proof that vaccines are unsafe and does nothing to alter the truth that a number of regulatory layers are in place to make sure vaccine security.
For extra, see our previous articles on these points: “FactChecking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” “Trump Embraces RFK Jr.’s Views on Vaccines, Fluoride,” “RFK Jr. Incorrectly Denies Past Remarks on Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness” and “What VAERS Can and Can’t Do, and How Anti-Vaccination Groups Habitually Misuse Its Data.”
Autism
Kennedy is maybe greatest identified for his continued insistence — regardless of ample evidence on the contrary — that vaccines trigger autism. He typically claims to easily need extra analysis on the topic, however an enormous physique of analysis has already been carried out, and the upshot is obvious: Vaccines do not cause autism.
In current months, Kennedy has largely shied away from mentioning vaccines when he brings up autism. However a couple of week earlier than the election, Lutnick repeated the declare — citing Kennedy — on CNN.
“And what he defined was, when he was born, we had three vaccines. And autism was 1 in 10,000,” Lutnick said on Oct. 31 of a dialog he had with Kennedy. “Now a child’s born with 76 vaccines as a result of in 1986 they waived product legal responsibility for vaccines. … So what occurred now — autism is 1 in 34.”
Ignoring the truth that these numbers are misleading and never quite right, and that over time the variety of vaccine antigens has truly declined whilst youngsters are protected in opposition to extra ailments, this can be a traditional case of correlation not equaling causation.
Even when he isn’t mentioning the vaccine half, Kennedy recites autism statistics and an oft-used anecdote to argue there may be now an epidemic of the situation.
“I’ve actually not ever met anyone [my age] with full-blown autism,” Kennedy said in a post-election podcast that aired on Nov. 11, repeating a line he used final summer time throughout his presidential marketing campaign.
As we’ve explained, autism diagnoses have certainly gone up over the previous a number of many years, however the bulk of the increase is considered on account of higher consciousness and a broader definition of the situation. A small portion of the rise could also be actual, defined partially by known risk factors, similar to extra infants with problems at start surviving and extra older mother and father having youngsters.
Kennedy might not have met anybody his age with profound autism — the proper time period for the signs he describes — however that doesn’t imply these people don’t exist. They do, specialists instructed us. In earlier many years, many would have been identified with a special ailment, as a substitute of autism.
Kennedy’s continued give attention to vaccines, when analysis has proven they don’t trigger autism, harms individuals and distracts from actual efforts to assist these with the situation, researchers instructed us.
For extra, see “What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism” and “Trump Embraces RFK Jr.’s Views on Vaccines, Fluoride.”
COVID-19
Kennedy has espoused many deceptive or incorrect concepts associated to the COVID-19 pandemic, an occasion that supercharged the reach and influence of Kids’s Well being Protection.
As we’ve mentioned, he’s backed medicines for the coronavirus similar to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin that work effectively for different ailments, however do nothing for COVID-19. And in misconstruing VAERS information, he has incorrectly introduced the COVID-19 vaccines as uniquely harmful.
In a March 2021 video, he misrepresented scientific research and reminded viewers of previous medical ethics failures such because the Tuskegee experiment to discourage Black individuals from getting vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19. Misinterpreting a study, Kennedy additionally mentioned in 2023 that “COVID-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and Black individuals.”
In a declare he repeated to NBC on Nov. 6, Kennedy mentioned he knew from studying “the monkey research” early on that the COVID-19 vaccines wouldn’t forestall transmission of the coronavirus. In actual fact, many monkey research did suggest that the vaccines would assist cut back transmission — and information present that they did simply that, even when their capacity to take action later declined. In any case, the vaccines weren’t approved for his or her capacity to scale back transmission. The primary objective of vaccination is to forestall extreme illness and dying. The FDA particularly cautioned in December 2020 that it wasn’t identified whether or not the vaccine would forestall unfold of the virus.
For extra, see “RFK Jr.’s COVID-19 Deceptions” and “RFK Jr. Video Pushes Known Vaccine Misrepresentations.”
Fluoride
Kennedy has long opposed water fluoridation, calling it “neurotoxic” and an “industrial waste.” Most analysis, nonetheless, has solely demonstrated that fluoride might be dangerous at larger ranges than what the U.S. Public Well being Service recommends states and native municipalities use of their ingesting water. Small quantities of fluoride are added to ingesting water in about two-thirds of the U.S. to enhance dental well being and stop cavities, particularly in youngsters.
In two post-election interviews, Kennedy has incorrectly urged that there’s clear proof that fluoride is harmful on the ranges presently in use, telling NBC that it’s “decreasing I.Q. in our kids” and “inflicting bone most cancers” and telling NPR that it’s “nearly definitely inflicting neurological improvement and lack of IQ in our kids, in addition to arthritis, bone breakage, thyroid issues, bone most cancers and plenty of different ailments.”
The analysis on fluoride is much extra nuanced than that. As we’ve explained, there may be some analysis suggesting that larger ranges of fluoride are linked to decreases in youngsters’s I.Q., however the proof that this happens at decrease ranges is far weaker and inconsistent.
In September, a federal decide ruled that the Environmental Safety Company should additional regulate fluoride in ingesting water, discovering that the fluoridation the U.S. considers optimum “poses an unreasonable threat of lowered IQ in youngsters.” Nonetheless, the decide added that “this discovering doesn’t conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public well being.”
For extra, see “CDC, Experts Say Fluoridated Water Is Safe, Contrary to RFK Jr.’s Warnings” and “Trump Embraces RFK Jr.’s Views on Vaccines, Fluoride.”
Continual Illness
Continual illness, notably in youngsters, has change into certainly one of Kennedy’s favourite matters. He typically says that when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was in workplace, simply 6% of children had a continual situation, however now it’s 60%. At instances, he provides that the 60% is “a conservative estimate” or that it displays a “debilitating” diploma of illness.
As we’ve written, there aren’t statistics that return to the Nineteen Sixties that present a transparent reply on how far more widespread continual illness has change into in youngsters right now. In lots of circumstances, the scientific definitions of situations had been totally different many years in the past or had not even been acknowledged but, making comparisons not possible. It’s unclear the place Kennedy is getting his figures, and he has not responded to our requests for his or her supply.
However specialists instructed us 60% is probably going an overestimate. Furthermore, not all circumstances of continual illness are extreme, as some definitions would come with gentle seasonal allergic reactions, for instance.
“The large development areas are weight problems and psychological/behavioral situations,” Paul Newacheck, a professor emeritus who studied youngsters’s well being coverage on the College of California, San Francisco, instructed us. “However they don’t add as much as 60% of children.”
Whilst he claims to know what the causes are — often, chemical substances or different environmental exposures — Kennedy alleges that the NIH “is not going to establish” the exposures, and that he’ll have the ability to finish the “epidemic” of continual illness “in a single day.” Specialists instructed us that prospect is implausible. Researchers do know some the reason why continual ailments are extra widespread, however they’re extra complicated and sometimes totally different than what Kennedy claims.
For extra, see “RFK Jr.’s Exaggerations on Chronic Disease in Children.”
Different Science-Associated Claims and Conspiracies
Along with his different claims about COVID-19, in 2020 Kennedy appeared to endorse a debunked conspiracy theory involving Invoice Gates, microchips and COVID-19 vaccines on social media.
In his 2021 e-book, “The Actual Anthony Fauci: Invoice Gates, Large Pharma, and the International Warfare on Democracy and Public Well being,” Kennedy forged Fauci, the previous director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses, as an archvillain who “deliberately derail[ed] America’s access to lifesaving drugs” through the pandemic with a view to revenue from vaccines. There isn’t a proof of this. Fauci has additionally denied earning any COVID-19-related royalties from pharmaceutical corporations.
Other than COVID-19 and vaccines, Kennedy has repeatedly linked antidepressants to mass shootings and urged that chemicals in water are accountable for “gender confusion” in youngsters. Each claims are baseless.
He has indicated he may consider within the chemtrails conspiracy theory, or the concept the federal government or different group is secretly spraying harmful chemical substances into the ambiance from airplanes. He’s mentioned that cell phone radiation is harmful and 5G wi-fi is a approach “to harvest our data and control our behavior.” On a number of events, Kennedy has falsely said that HIV may not be the only explanation for AIDS.
In July, Kennedy misleadingly interpreted HHS efforts to arrange vaccines for a doable H5N1 hen flu outbreak in a nefarious mild. “Why would you want this vaccine, except you anticipated a way more virulent virus to seem which had mysteriously gained the power to unfold between people?” he mentioned in a post on X. “Will there be one other lab-derived pandemic? Not on my watch!”
Notably, Kennedy additionally obtained a number of particulars improper in regards to the actions HHS had taken to safe hen flu vaccines.
For extra, see “FactChecking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” “RFK Jr.’s COVID-19 Deceptions” and “Bird Flu Pandemic Preparedness Activities Are Not Evidence of a Conspiracy.”
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