After all of the votes are counted, regardless of who wins, the empowering of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by Donald Trump will likely be one of many sorriest legacies of the 2024 election cycle.
I had hoped that Trump was merely humoring Kennedy to get the votes of his supporters. As a third-party candidate, Kennedy could not have had a really huge slice of the pie, however in a squeaky tight race, each crumb counts.
But after Kennedy dropped out and endorsed Trump, the previous president has stated that Kennedy would have an necessary function in his potential new administration.
“I’m gonna let him go wild on well being,” Trump instructed the gang at his latest Madison Sq. Backyard hatefest. “I’m gonna let him go wild on the meals. I’m gonna let him go wild on medicines.”
The Washington Put up reported that Kennedy could possibly be given “vital management over well being and meals security … with discussions about some Cupboard and company officers reporting to him.”
What a joke. Kennedy is an antivax conspiracy theorist who promotes far-fetched well being claims. He as soon as wrote that “COVID photographs are against the law in opposition to humanity.”
My pal and fellow journalist Roy Rivenburg says that placing Kennedy accountable for American public well being can be like placing Fox Information accountable for a journalism college, Exxon accountable for the Sierra Membership or PETA accountable for McDonald’s.
Along with selling loony medical theories, Kennedy rails in opposition to the poor consuming habits of Individuals and the hyperlinks between weight-reduction plan and persistent illness. I can’t disagree with him there. However I do bear in mind a sure first girl who was savaged by Republicans for planting a White Home vegetable backyard and urging youngsters to eat wholesome and transfer extra.
Kennedy’s submit final weekend on X is extra consistent with his crackpot concepts. He said that fluoride, which strengthens enamel and reduces cavities, needs to be faraway from public water provides. After I was a toddler, the right-wing extremist John Birch Society, which noticed Communist threats round each nook, propounded the lie that fluoridating the water provide was a pinko plot to poison American brains.
Trump’s response to Kennedy’s suggestion? “It sounds OK to me.”
Kennedy has repeatedly recommended that vaccines, which some consultants contemplate probably the most vital public well being achievement of the twentieth century — extra necessary than the invention of antibiotics — needs to be yanked off the market. Although he has denied it, Kennedy was chargeable for serving to push antivax theories that contributed to a lethal 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. Many of the 83 deaths there have been of kids.
Regardless of the hundreds of thousands of lives which have been saved over the many years by vaccines that stop all method of once-rampant childhood illnesses — polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, rooster pox, whooping cough — Kennedy has recommended that the federal government is withholding information exhibiting vaccines are unsafe.
“Why do you suppose vaccines are secure?” Trump transition group co-chair Howard Lutnick requested CNN’s Kaitlan Collins final week. “They’re not confirmed.”
Lutnick arrived at his unscientific view of vaccines after spending a few hours with Kennedy, who undoubtedly spewed a boatload of unscientific, ahistorical rubbish at him.
“He says, ‘In the event you give me the info, all I need is the info, and I’ll tackle the info and present that it’s not secure,’ ” stated Lutnick. “‘After which for those who pull the product legal responsibility, the businesses will yank these vaccines proper off, off of the market.’”
The info will present that vaccines are secure. Nonetheless, if vaccine makers are now not immune from legal responsibility fits, they may certainly pull their merchandise off the market, as a result of they are going to be sued into oblivion. They’d don’t have any monetary incentive to proceed making vaccines.
That is precisely why Congress handed, and President Reagan signed into legislation, the Nationwide Childhood Vaccine Harm Act of 1986. The legislation, which limits producers’ legal responsibility in such lawsuits, additionally created the Nationwide Vaccine Harm Compensation Program, which offers cash to individuals who declare to have skilled accidents corresponding to allergic reactions. Since its inception, this system has paid out about $5.3 billion for 11,399 instances.
As is the case with any drugs, together with aspirin, a vanishingly small variety of youngsters are adversely affected by vaccines. However actually not sufficient to sacrifice the lives of so many who’ve been spared from pointless sickness and struggling. Additionally, I can’t imagine I have to say this: Vaccines don’t trigger autism.
Lutnick, chairman and chief govt of Cantor Fitzgerald, is another smug billionaire swept into Trump’s slipstream of conspiracy theories, grievances and distrust. If he had spent two minutes on Wikipedia, he’d have realized how fortunate we’re to have vaccines.
In what different methods may a Trump administration and Kennedy well being czar endanger the lives of Individuals?
Along with botching the nation’s response to COVID-19 in 2020, Trump is chargeable for one of many nation’s present indefensible well being crises: the dearth of entry to reproductive healthcare, which is killing ladies in states with abortion bans. He additionally presides over a celebration that has launched a conflict in opposition to gender-affirming medical take care of trans folks. Kennedy has been inconsistent in his help for abortion, and he opposes gender-affirming care for minors.
Final month, at certainly one of his rallies, Trump referred to as on Kennedy to “Make America wholesome once more.” Slurring barely, Trump stated, “Come on Bobby. Bobby is gonna do it. Bobby. Let’s go Bobby. Ya gonna make us wholesome, Bobby?”
The one potential reply is a convincing no.
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