Prominent anti-vaccination advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended his independent presidential campaign to join President Donald Trump's campaign, raising concerns among health experts that he could influence the former president's public health policies in his second term.
Kennedy said in announcing the appointment last week that Trump “had asked me to join his administration.” His former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said earlier this month that Kennedy would do a “great job” as Health and Human Services secretary.
While Trump has not said he would give Kennedy a specific role, he appointed the one-time rival to his transition team and, in a leaked phone call in July, suggested Kennedy would have a “big” role in his administration.
President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., told conservative radio host Glenn Beck this month that he supported Kennedy taking over and “destroying” government institutions.
And that's exactly what many medical experts fear will happen to the public health agencies Kennedy directs, including the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.
“From a health perspective, this is just chaos,” said Robert Murphy, a professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“He has proven himself to be a dangerous, science-illiterate and science-nonconforming fanatic.”
“If he were to take on any role, any leadership position that has anything to do with a lot of things, especially health-related things, we would be in big trouble,” he added.
Murphy cited the deadly measles epidemic in Samoa as an example of the damage Kennedy could cause. Waves of the virus spread 5,600 people An explosion in the tiny Pacific island nation in 2019 killed 83 people.
Many factors contributed to this outbreak, including reduced vaccination coverage due to public health fears the previous year, and in 2018, two infants in Samoa died shortly after receiving the MMR vaccine, leading to vaccine hesitancy.
However, the vaccine did not cause the baby's death. The two nurses who gave the baby the injection accidentally mixed the vaccine with a liquid muscle relaxant instead of water, causing the baby's death. Hold your breathAfter being injected.
The death led the Samoan government to temporarily suspend its vaccination program, leading to a drop in vaccination rates.
That same year, Children's Health Defense, the organization Kennedy led for many years, published several Facebook posts questioning the safety of vaccines given to babies. The Washington PostThe group noted that the post had not been updated to explain the nurse's mistake.
During the 2019 outbreak, Kennedy publicly supported anti-vaccination advocates on the island, including Australian-Samoan anti-vaccination activist Taylor Winterstein. But in the 2023 documentary “Shot in the Arm,” Kennedy said he had “nothing to do” with people in Samoa who have not been vaccinated.
“I have never told anybody not to get vaccinated. I did not go there to get vaccinated,” he said. In the movies.
Kennedy has often given mixed or contradictory messages about vaccines.
He denies being anti-vaccination altogether, but has long rejected conspiracy theories about vaccines. At a congressional hearing last year, he said:Urging people to avoid vaccinationsBut two years ago, he said on a podcast that he often advises people not to let strangers vaccinate their babies.On CNN in DecemberHe denied saying any vaccines were “safe and effective,” despite saying exactly that in an interview last July.
Health officials are already concerned about declining vaccination rates among U.S. children as the COVID-19 pandemic has fueled vaccine skepticism, especially in Republican states. President Trump's promise to cut federal funding to schools that require vaccinations has exacerbated those concerns. Kennedy's addition could further erode public confidence in vaccines.
“The idea that RFK Jr. would have a say in who he chooses [to be part of Trump’s administration] “To me and many of my public health colleagues, this situation is extremely worrying,” W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, told The Hill.
“Many of us are old enough to remember what happened before we had the polio vaccine or the measles vaccine … millions of children were adversely affected because of the lack of protection from those types of diseases,” Lipkin said.
Even if Kennedy himself is not appointed to a public health position, Lipkin worries that Kennedy could lead the former president to place in the top public health job someone who would support curtailing vaccine research or changing how vaccines are distributed.
Murphy has similar concerns and believes Kennedy could influence Trump to appoint someone who would stop tracking dangerous diseases.
Many of the top public health officials, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Surgeon General, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are political appointees.
Republicans have backed legislation that would make the CDC director a Senate-confirmed position starting in 2025, largely because the agency has been mired in controversy after issuing divisive guidance on COVID-19. That could give Democrats the power to block Trump's nomination for CDC director if he returns to the White House.
