Vice President Harris on Friday blasted Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attainable function as a public well being authority in a second Trump administration, calling him the “last person” who ought to be thought-about for such a place.
“He has indicated that the person who would be in charge of health care for the American people is someone who has routinely promoted junk science and crazy conspiracy theories, who once expressed support for a national abortion ban. And who is the exact last person in America who should be setting health care policy for America’s families and children,” Harris instructed reporters Friday afternoon.
In current weeks, Kennedy and the Trump marketing campaign have indicated he would have outsized affect over public well being coverage ought to former President Trump retake the Oval Workplace.
Harris has beforehand cited Trump’s embrace of Kennedy as proof of him being unfit for workplace.
“Putting an anti-abortion conspiracy theorist in charge of our public health agencies says everything you need to know about how Donald Trump would govern,” Harris stated in a publish on X.
Kennedy stated Monday that Trump has promised him “control” of public well being companies just like the Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS) and the Division of Agriculture (USDA). Trump has stated he would let Kennedy “go wild on food” and “go wild on medicines” if reelected.
“The key that … President Trump has promised me is — is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its subagencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which is … key to making America healthy,” Kennedy stated in a video seen by The Hill. “Because we’ve got to get off of seed oils, and we’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.”
Well being specialists have expressed issues over the dangerous affect Kennedy might have on public well being if Trump wins a second time period, citing his long-held beliefs in debunked conspiracy theories.
Kennedy is a number one voice amongst anti-vaccine proponents, having lengthy pushed the debunked claims linking vaccinations to autism. Although he has at instances rejected being known as anti-vaccine, he has additionally claimed there is no such factor as a “safe and effective” vaccine.
Critics of Kennedy have cited his actions in Samoa for instance of the hurt his affect can have on public well being. Within the months earlier than a 2019 outbreak of measles within the nation that killed 83 folks, Kennedy and the nonprofit he leads, the Youngsters’s Well being Protection, visited Samoa and publicly supported distinguished vaccine opponents.
Kennedy has denied any involvement, saying in a 2023 movie, “I never told anybody not to vaccinate.”
Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition workforce, stated in an interview on CNN that Kennedy is looking for federal information to drive vaccines off the market.
