A vaccine skeptic and peddler of junk science, his theories would put Americans at risk.
One of Donald Trump’s signature first-term achievements was Operation Warp Speed, the $18 billion effort to accelerate development of the Covid-19 vaccine. He deserves lasting credit for supporting the major effort it involved, the millions of lives it helped save and the enormous economic benefits it produced. So why would he now appoint someone who would undo his own success?
In his election night victory speech, Trump suggested that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a notorious anti-vaccine crusader and peddler of junk science — would have a prominent role in his administration. It would be a disastrous mistake that would kill and sicken countless Americans while also harming Trump’s political standing and tarnishing his first-term legacy.
Trump should remember that Kennedy spread lies about the Covid vaccine, falsely calling it the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” In any position of influence, Kennedy would jeopardize decades of hard-won advances in public health and put American lives needlessly at risk.
Kennedy, nephew of America’s 35th president, doesn’t have public-health expertise. He’s an environmental lawyer who did decades of good work fighting corporate polluters. In the early 2000s, however, he began to explore the dark corners of pseudoscience, including the baseless and debunked conspiracy theory that common childhood vaccines were linked to autism. His list of public-health grievances has grown to include the fluoridation of drinking water. But of all his crackpot ideas, his vaccine denialism is the most dangerous.
Vaccinations are one of the biggest public-health accomplishments of the 20th century, having saved millions of lives in the US and around the world. One study found that infants comprised two-thirds of the 154 million lives saved from global vaccination efforts over the past half-century. Thanks to vaccines, afflictions such as polio are now rare. Smallpox has been eradicated.
Kennedy would put all that progress at risk. Want to see a return of measles, mumps and rubella in schools across the country? Appoint Kennedy. Want to see more people die from Covid? Appoint Kennedy. Want to see spikes in diphtheria? Appoint Kennedy.
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