remember ivermectinthe anti-parasitic drug wrongly touted by the right-wing media as a cure for COVID? how are you hydroxychloroquine, then the malaria treatment taken by thousands who suffered side effects Donald Trump recommended it As a treatment for COVID? And remember when the Trump White House pondered poisonous oleandrin As a COVID treatment, with the advice of a pillow maker campaign donor?
Now Trump says he will promote someone with one to his cabinet outstanding record to promote pseudoscience and utter dishonesty: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. A prominent vaccine skeptic, Kennedy promises. disaster for US public health.
“For too long, Americans have been oppressed by the food industrial complex and drug companies that have engaged in fraud, misinformation, and misinformation when it comes to public health,” he wrote. Trump announced in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on November 14 that he would nominate Kennedy to head the US Department of Health and Human Services..
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“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the Golden Traditions of Scientific Research and the Lights of Transparency to End the Chronic Disease Epidemic and Make America Great and Healthy Again! Trump added.
That, according to Kennedy, will include encouraging the removal of fluoride from drinking water, reconsidering the already strict approval of vaccines reviewing denied treatmentssuch as chelation therapy, is sometimes proposed as a treatment for autism.
Kennedy is an environmental lawyer the master doubt grows about public health. It uses the same seed of mistrust the technique that He worked in the tobacco industry for decades“just asking questions” by disguising it as threatening support for science and one already stumbling public health infrastructure.
Kennedy owes his rise to prominence in large measure and income to his surname, without proving his scientific ability. As a senior writer for the NBC News medical unit in the 2010s, I repeatedly battled with senior producers who wanted to cover Kennedy and his false health claims. These claims expand vaccine skepticism to opting for raw milk and The fear that Wi-Fi can cause cancer. Now he will have the implicit legitimacy of the White House. News outlets will have little choice but to report whatever crap they decide to throw out.
“This is not his expertise. I’m not really sure why they would let him do any of those things,” says Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
The Senate will have to confirm Kennedy to head HHS, which has a huge department almost 2 billion dollars The annual budget overseen by the US Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
But even if the Republican-led Senate refuses to confirm Kennedy, Trump could hand him an unofficial position of “tsar” with significant influence over new political appointees eager to please the fickle Trump.
“They take calls from the White House,” says Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University. “Being able to whisper in the president’s ear carries enormous power and influence.”
HHS leads agencies responsible for finding new drugs, approving new treatments and vaccines, providing public health advice, and preparing for threats such as pandemics and biological attacks. COVID has killed him More than 42,000 US people only this year. And with H5N1 bird flu spreading between birds, cattle and peopleIt is a dangerous time to give way to the amateur.
Kennedy comes to the Trump administration with a track record of trying to thwart public health campaigns. His non-profit Children’s Health Defense he has produced films, for example Vaxxed III: License to Kill, it features testimonies from people who claim that standard medical treatments or vaccines have hurt or killed loved ones. “We leave it up to you to decide where the truth lies,” it reads Vaxxed IIIpresentation of a facebook disinformation campaign Funded largely by Kennedy’s organization, he helped promote fear of measles vaccines in American Samoa. As a result appearance there in 2019 He killed 83 peoplemost of them children, and more than 5,700 fell ill. This year only low vaccination at least he has brought 277 cases of measles in 32 cities and states, according to the CDC.
Kennedy is likely to directly limit the state’s approval of vaccines, Gostin said. But it could scare more people away from vaccines and help turn an already skeptical public away from mainstream medicine. “There are no guardrails when spreading disinformation and disinformation. There are no restrictions,” says Gostin.
“In my opinion, he is the most influential and well-funded anti-baxxer in the world. But now he’s going to have the imprint of the White House and public health bodies like the CDC to increase that deep distrust of vaccines and also that deep distrust of public health agencies and science itself,” Gostin added.
The CDC already has He fought to get the cooperation of state officials and dairy farms to collect data An outbreak of H5N1 in farm animals that has caused infections in humans. In the US, there have been human cases It has been confirmed in 53 people in seven states. So far, all of them have been confirmed infections between animals. (The source of the additional US case is unknown.)
After spreading from poultry to dairy cows, the virus also infects them another range of mammalsincluding pigs, the most popular mixing bowl for influenza viruses. If the virus starts to spread from human to human, the federal government is already there preparing vaccines behind. “If we have an H5N1 outbreak, assuming we have a vaccine that works, how do we get people to take it?” Benjamin asks.
An HHS chief tells people to drink raw milk from possibly contaminated cows it won’t help. In the meantime pasteurization kills the virusoffering raw milk there is no such protectionand sickens hundreds of people who catch them every year Listeria, Campylobacter and other bacterial infections arising from it. FDA fights raw milk movement. Trump’s transition chairman, Howard Lutnick, told CNN in October that Kennedy’s plans included ending his faith in vaccines. “He wants the data so he can say these things are not safe,” Lutnick he saidalthough incredible numbers according to clinical trial data that show this vaccines are absolutely safe.
“The FDA’s war on public health is coming to an end,” Kennedy recently He wrote in X. “This includes psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapy, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health that cannot be patented. by Pharma”.
While few would argue against the benefits of exercise, psychedelic treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have yet to make it through clinical trials. do not treat or prevent COVIDhyperbaric therapy they are only proven to treat rare conditions a decompression sickness, and it is FDA limited by law from regulating multi-billion dollars nutraceuticals and supplements market. A lot legitimate stem cell treatments they exist, but thousands of clinics offer sham treatments at exorbitant prices, exploiting the hope of desperate patients.
It is ironic that Kennedy is happy to question vaccines, vaccines that are rigorously tested and monitored and kept. 154 million lives for the past 50 years, while promoting unproven or disproved products along with treatments that empty your pockets with empty promises.
Benjamin says he gives up. “We already know (the FDA) is overburdened, underfunded and under stress to get things done quickly,” he said.
Strong leaders at HHS, FDA, and CDC will have a hard time coping The COVID experience it has already promised: an onslaught of confusing, contradictory and chaotic health directions coming from a Trump White House. Weaker leaders may not even bother to try.
“Oh, God. Wouldn’t it be terrible for us to look at another epidemic (of Trump)?” Benjamin asks. “I’m not sure how much they learned from the first one.”
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author(s) are not necessarily their own. American scientific.
