Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been picked by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has been critical of processed food, vaccines, and fluoride in water. What impact could he have on the nation’s health?
www.wbur.org
>>>CHAKRABARTI: Alright, let's listen once again to things that Kennedy has said about vaccines. He's obviously been on the record and very clear about still, to this day, believing that vaccines cause autism. There's no scientific evidence that is true. But he's also recently tried to add some nuance to his views. For example, on the Bill Maher Show, he said that he claims he's always believed that if people want vaccines, they should be able to get them.
KENNEDY, Jr.: I'm not anti vaccine. What I say is that --
MAHER: People think you are.
KENNEDY, Jr.: I know, but that's because I'm called that, because it's a way of silencing me.
But I have said for 17 years, I'm not anti-vaccine. I just want good science. I want, people should be able to make informed choices. I am against vaccine mandates.
CHAKRABARTI: So Professor Nuzzo, this claim about wanting good science about vaccines is true. It can be read also as a flat-out rejection of the good science that exists.
We have evidence that his advocacy on this has actually had an impact on people. Specifically, about MMR, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and something that happened in American Samoa. Can you tell us about that?
NUZZO: Yes. This new talking point that, I'm not anti vaccines, I just want good data, it really, unfortunately, just is a talking point. It sounds like a very reasonable statement. Who wouldn't disagree with that? Of course, we all want data, but it really stands at odds with his historic stance on vaccines. And even the clip you played in which he bragged about telling people, not to vaccinate their children.
I think speak very clearly. I don't know how you interpret that other than the fact that he is in fact anti vaccine and the real deadly consequences of this can be seen in a very tragic outbreak of measles in American Samoa. So there was a very unfortunate incident in Samoa where two infants died after getting the MMR vaccine and the kind of safety systems that are in place to monitor vaccines to make sure they aren't causing harm snapped into place.
And there was a temporary pause on vaccination efforts in the country until they figured out what was going on. In fact, they found that it wasn't the vaccine itself, but that nurses had accidentally mixed it with something that they weren't supposed to. So something that actually harmed the children.
It was a medication that shouldn't have been given. And so it was really just clinical error, not the vaccine itself. And so once that was realized, there was an effort, of course, to resume the vaccination campaign. But, after that event, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to Samoa and met with prominent anti vaxxer there.
It was a pretty kind of publicized event on the channels of that, also wrote a letter to government agencies further calling into question the value, the safety of vaccines and what we then saw was a really explosive outbreak of measles that ultimately killed 83 people, most of whom were toddlers and babies. So as health authorities were desperately trying to make sure people were fully protected against the virus and trying to vaccinate, they were battling the kind of hesitation and fear about the vaccine that anti vaxxers had really spread. And it's really quite tragic and it's something they tried to distance themselves from.
There's a lot of documentation of this.<<<
