Robert Redfield, former director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) beneath the primary Trump administration, gave a vote of confidence to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as potential head of the Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS).
NewsNation’s Brian Entin requested Redfield on Sunday whether or not there needs to be considerations that Kennedy, a well known opponent of vaccines, will introduce a “no-vaccine culture” into public coverage.
“No Brian, I don’t think that. I mean, I’m probably one of the biggest advocates for vaccines. You mentioned that — I, when I was CDC director, I would say that I think vaccines are the greatest gift of science to modern medicine and I still believe that,” Redfield stated.
“Kennedy is not antivaccine. What Kennedy is about is transparency about vaccines, honest discussion about vaccines, asking for the data to show that these vaccines are safe and they’re efficacious.”
Redfield served as CDC director from 2018 to 2021.
Since at the least 2005, Kennedy has been one of the crucial well-known vaccine skeptics and opponents, pushing the declare that vaccines are linked to autism regardless of a scarcity of scientific information to corroborate these claims.
The Middle for Countering Digital Hate named Kennedy among the many prime 12 spreaders of on-line antivaccine content material.
In 2021, Kennedy described the COVID-19 vaccine because the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” citing information from the Vaccine Opposed Occasion Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS, established within the Eighties, is run by each the CDC and the Meals and Drug Administration. The system permits anyone to report any results noticed following vaccines, however these experiences usually are not verified earlier than being entered into VAERS.
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which additionally owns The Hill.
