RFK Jr. confirms he will disrupt health on day one

As Donald Trump prepares to resume his seat at the Resolute Desk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. positioned itself to exert a sweeping influence over American health care from day one of a new Trump administration.

The Kennedy family claimed he and the president-elect will remove fluoride from drinking water on Jan. 20 and provide “information” about vaccines, in a Wednesday interview with NPR.

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer — who has no degrees in public health, science or medicine — is considered one of the country’s loudest anti-vaccine voices (a movement he denies affiliation with). According to him, he and Trump “will make America healthy again.”

“He knows better than anybody,” Trump said of the man he once called “dumbest member” of the Kennedy dynasty on 1 Novadding that he “has some views that I happen to be very much in agreement with and have been for a long time.”

Drug companies and federal health agencies, Kennedy has long argued, are making Americans less healthy.

In an interview with the Daily Beast in August, he indicated that he would shift the “emphasis at NIH from drug development and infectious disease toward ending the chronic disease epidemic,” including what he called the “autism epidemic,” as priority action items.

Although he rejects the label “anti-vax,” critics point to Kennedy’s involvement as the founder of Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the nation, and his vocal opposition to mandatory inoculation at a time when previously eradicated viruses are on the rise in the country as further evidence that he is anti-vaccine.

For years, he has also touted various controversial theories related to the COVID-19 vaccine and other inoculations, having repeatedly claimed that vaccines are linked to autisma long rejected idea. He has also suggested that some vaccines be removed from the market – a position not ruled out by Trump.

“There is nothing I would do in office for people who are happy with their vaccines that would take that away from them,” Kennedy told the Beast, “I don’t think any medical intervention should be mandated.”

The potential impact of Kennedy’s vaccine rhetoric is not lost on experts, many of them have warned of potential catastrophic effects.

“He misinforms to the point that children suffer or die, and he also stands back and takes no responsibility for it,” Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia told CNBC.

Kennedy’s sister Kerry Kennedy also expressed dismay at her brother’s vaccine rhetoric. “I am concerned about childhood vaccines and to ensure that the United States, both domestically and internationally, continues to make all of these vaccines available to people and to our children and to our world,” she said on CNN Wednesday.

As for other potential public health and health care overhauls in the Trump era, President-elect Kennedy tasked tackling women’s health, nutrition and healthy eating, and pesticides.

Kennedy too supports the removal of fluoride from drinking water on the incorrect argument that fluoride is linked to “arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease.”

The CDC and American Dental Association both say fluoridated water does not pose any of these risks at the level currently recommended by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. Water fluoridation has improved the oral health of millions of Americans.

Kennedy’s anti-fluoride agenda “sounds OK to me,” according to Trump.

How exactly Kennedy will execute his reported plans remains unclear. In a leaked audio recording, he claimed that Trump promised him “control of public health agencies,” including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture.

While Trump’s co-chairman Howard Lutnick dismissed plans to name Kennedy as secretary of health and human services, the president-elect himself confirmed that Kennedy would have a “very large role” in health care.

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