Within the waning days of his marketing campaign, former President Donald Trump has additional embraced a few of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s incorrect or controversial views on well being, together with vaccines and fluoride.
In a Nov. 3 phone interview with NBC Information’ Dasha Burns, Trump appeared open to eradicating fluoride within the nation’s water provide and taking motion to restrict vaccines.
When requested if “banning sure vaccines could be on the desk,” Trump replied, “Effectively, I’m going to speak to him and speak to different individuals, and I’ll decide, however he’s a really proficient man and has sturdy views,” referring to Kennedy.
Trump equally mentioned he hadn’t mentioned fluoride but with Kennedy, however when requested about Kennedy’s announcement that the Trump administration would advise in opposition to water fluoridation on Day One, he mentioned, “it sounds OK to me.”
Small quantities of fluoride are added to ingesting water in a lot of the U.S. to forestall tooth decay and are accepted as secure and efficient by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and knowledgeable teams such because the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The founding father of Youngsters’s Well being Protection, a nonprofit that spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, Kennedy has been an outspoken opponent of vaccines and water fluoridation for a few years. He has continued to make false and deceptive claims about vaccines — together with the debunked notion that vaccines trigger autism — during his presidential run, first as a Democrat, and later as an impartial.
In August, Kennedy endorsed Trump for president and has since turn out to be a part of the candidate’s transition team. He’s additionally partnered with Trump on the “Make America Wholesome Once more” marketing campaign, a lot of which is targeted on power illness. There’s no query that People undergo an excessive amount of from power circumstances, however as we’ve written, Kennedy has a history of blaming such ailments on the incorrect exposures, oversimplifying their causes and implausibly claiming that he can finish the power illness epidemic “in a single day.”
With Kennedy and on his personal, Trump has beforehand repeated vaccine falsehoods. In a July phone name with Kennedy, which one in all Kennedy’s sons posted to social media, Trump incorrectly suggested that childhood vaccine doses are too giant and are harmful to youngsters. There’s no evidence that the present vaccination schedule is dangerous to kids.
Within the telephone name, which occurred previous to Kennedy’s determination to droop his marketing campaign and again Trump, the previous president appeared to wish to collaborate, telling Kennedy, “I’d love you to do one thing.” For the reason that endorsement, there was hypothesis that Kennedy would possibly serve in a high health-related place in Trump’s authorities, a lot to the consternation of many scientists and public well being consultants.
“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 medicines,” Trump said of Kennedy throughout an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Sq. Backyard.
“I mentioned he might do it. He might do something he needs,” Trump said at an occasion in Arizona on Oct. 31. “He needs to have a look at the vaccines. He needs all the things. I feel it’s nice.”
In a video name with members of the marketing campaign that circulated on-line, Kennedy said that Trump had “promised” him “management” of the nation’s public well being businesses, mentioning Well being and Human Companies and a few of its subagencies, the CDC, the Meals and Drug Administration and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
The marketing campaign, nonetheless, would not confirm Kennedy’s claims — and referred to as discussions of who would serve within the administration “untimely.” Nameless sources informed NBC News that Kennedy would get a distinct sort of place centered on childhood power ailments.
In his Nov. 3 interview with Burns, Trump declined to specify Kennedy’s future place.
“I’m not going to speak about that however he’s going to have an enormous function within the administration,” Trump said, when requested whether or not he needed Kennedy in a Cupboard place — and whether or not he thought Kennedy would make it by way of Senate affirmation.
In an Oct. 30 interview on CNN, Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition staff and head of the monetary providers agency Cantor Fitzgerald, mentioned that Kennedy didn’t need — nor would he get — the secretary of Well being and Human Companies place.
“Right here’s what he needs to do. He mentioned, ‘I would like knowledge,’” Lutnick said of Kennedy and vaccines. “He needs the information so he can say these items are unsafe.”
Lutnick mentioned he had spoken with Kennedy for 2 and a half hours, and proceeded to recite a number of of Kennedy’s go-to speaking factors about vaccines, together with the concept that vaccines are chargeable for the rise within the prevalence of autism over time and that vaccines are unsafe due to a 1986 regulation eradicating product legal responsibility.
“Why do you assume vaccines are secure? There’s no product legal responsibility anymore,” Lutnick said. “Everyone knows so many extra individuals with autism than had it after we had been younger.”
As we’ve written, autism diagnoses have gone up over time, however a lot of that’s associated to extra consciousness and altering definitions of the situation. Examine after examine has did not discover a hyperlink between vaccines and autism.
A 1986 law did take away most legal responsibility for vaccine makers, however this didn’t alter the method for reviewing the protection and efficacy of vaccines. On the time, vaccine makers had been more and more being sued for alleged harms that had been later discovered to not be as a result of vaccines — with giant awards threatening the vaccine provide. In recognition that vaccines are extremely useful, however do hardly ever trigger severe unwanted side effects, corresponding to allergic reactions, the federal government stepped in and arrange an alternate compensation system for individuals with cheap claims of hurt.
Lutnick later posted on X that he and his spouse “belief our medical doctors” and “have vaccinated our youngsters and ourselves,” however mentioned “not all people trusts such recommendation or the FDA.”
“We’d be doing everybody a service if the federal government revered Bobby Kennedy’s request to make the total knowledge accessible,” he added.
There is no such thing as a proof, nonetheless, that there’s any knowledge being hidden that will present vaccines are unsafe.
In an Oct. 31 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Trump’s working mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, additionally spoke negatively of vaccines.
“The second the place I actually began to get redpilled on the entire vax factor was, the sickest I had been within the final 15 years, by far, was once I took the vaccine,” Vance said of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In contrast with different vaccines, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines tend to supply extra of the short-term, anticipated unwanted side effects, corresponding to ache on the injection web site, fever and headache — significantly in youthful individuals. Whereas this may be disagreeable, it doesn’t imply the vaccines are unsafe.
In the identical Nov. 3 interview with Burns, Trump additionally indicated that he would possibly associate with a Kennedy plan to cease water fluoridation within the U.S.
“Effectively, I haven’t talked to him about it but, nevertheless it sounds OK to me,” Trump mentioned, when requested about whether or not he was “on board” with such a plan. “You recognize, it’s potential.”
The day earlier than, Kennedy had written on X that on Trump’s first day in workplace, his administration “will advise all U.S. water techniques to take away fluoride from public water.” The put up went on to name fluoride an “industrial waste related to arthritis, bone fractures, bone most cancers, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental problems, and thyroid illness.” Whereas excessive quantities of fluoride have been linked to a few of these well being issues, the comparatively low ranges of fluoride at the moment really helpful within the U.S. usually haven’t. In some circumstances, the proof is unclear.
Fluoride happens naturally in some water techniques. The CDC recommends that communities regulate the degrees of fluoride of their water to optimum ranges to forestall tooth decay, a suggestion supported by varied expert teams. The CDC web site states that there’s “sturdy proof of group water fluoridation’s security and effectiveness.” As of 2022, around 63% of People obtained fluoridated water.
As we now have written previously, there’s proof that water fluoridation has had a constructive influence on dental well being. Most lately, a overview study revealed within the Cochrane Library discovered that fluoridation could “result in barely extra kids being freed from tooth decay,” though the addition of fluoride to toothpaste could have lessened the results of fluoridating faucet water.
Ingesting an excessive amount of fluoride has a pair well-accepted harms. CDC and EPA suggestions and laws try to make sure that individuals are uncovered to solely a secure degree of fluoride.
Excessive ranges of fluoride publicity can result in bone issues. To forestall these points, the Environmental Safety Company requires that public water techniques preserve fluoride ranges under 4 mg per liter. Fluoride publicity throughout formative years can also result in dental fluorosis, a situation that usually simply includes tooth discoloration. To guard in opposition to dental fluorosis, the EPA recommends a fluoride restrict of two mg per liter. The CDC-recommended degree of fluoride to enhance dental well being is under these limits — at 0.7 mg per liter.
Some research — many together with individuals uncovered to water with very excessive ranges of naturally occurring fluoride — even have indicated that publicity to fluoride throughout being pregnant could also be related to decreased IQ in kids. As we now have written, there may be appreciable uncertainty about whether or not the fluoride publicity precipitated the decreased IQ scores and what degree of fluoride publicity might need a detrimental impact.
Consultants differ on how communities ought to reply to this analysis on the potential results of fluoride on the mind. As we’ve mentioned, the CDC and varied knowledgeable teams proceed to advocate water fluoridation at optimum ranges. Nevertheless, some researchers have expressed considerations concerning the results of fluoridation on baby improvement.
Primarily based on this physique of labor on fluoride and baby mind improvement, anti-fluoridation teams sued the EPA. In September, a federal District Court docket choose ruled that the EPA should additional regulate fluoride in ingesting water. The choose concluded that fluoridation “poses an unreasonable danger of decreased IQ in kids,” primarily based on uncertainty about whether or not fluoride would possibly have an effect on mind improvement when added to water at really helpful ranges of 0.7 mg per liter.
Responses might vary from banning fluoride in public ingesting water to easily issuing a warning. The EPA has not but mentioned the way it intends to reply.
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