Mitch McConnell warns RFK Jr. against efforts to undermine polio vaccines

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell issued an apparent warning on Friday Robert F. KennedyPresident-elect Donald Trump’s choose to lead Health and Human Services Department, after The New York Times reported that one of Kennedy’s top advisers had petitioned to revoke the approval of a polio vaccine and several other shots.

“Anyone seeking Senate consent to serve in the incoming administration would be wise to avoid even apparent association with such efforts,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell, a polio survivors, condemned the effort “to undermine public confidence in proven cures” like the polio vaccine.

“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and delivered on the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they are dangerous,” McConnell said.

McConnell credited the “miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love” with saving him from paralysis when he contracted the disease at the age of two, and he praised the “miracle” of the “saving power of the polio vaccine” for millions of people. of children who came after him.

The Times article focused heavily on the work done by attorney Aaron Siri for the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, which petition The Food and Drug Administration in 2022 “requires that the FDA suspend or withdraw approval” of Sanofi Pasteur’s inactivated polio vaccine, called IPOL.

Siri has served as an adviser to the transition team for Kennedy, who, if confirmed by the Senate, would oversee the FDA and the country’s other public health authorities.

Siri called the Times article a “hit piece” that did not engage the substance of the “legitimate” concern at the center of the petition he submitted to ICAN.

“ICAN’s petition, filed in 2022, makes the reasonable request that the FDA, as required by federal law, require a proper clinical trial for IPOL before licensure,” Siri submitted on X.

The Times report on Siri’s work sparked a renewed round of backlash against Kennedy by democratsalso who have criticized Trump for months over his ties to Kennedy.

As HHS secretary, Kennedy wanted it significant direct authority as the nation’s health secretary over how vaccines are studied, approved and recommended in the United States, he and his FDA commissioner would also monitor how government lawyers respond to many of the legal battles Siri has launched against the agency over vaccines.

Kennedy himself has said he would not ban vaccines and has tried to distance itself from the “anti-vaccine” label, calling instead for further investigation into the shots. He recently resigned as chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that watchdog groups have found for years to be spread misinformation over fear of vaccines.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he might be open to getting rid of some vaccines “if I think it’s dangerous,” and promised to listen to Kennedy.

“We’re going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever thought possible. If you look at things that are happening, something is causing it,” Trump said in a interview with Time magazine released this week when asked if he would sign on to a move by Kennedy to end childhood vaccination programs.

Extensive medical research has conclusively shown that vaccines not cause autism.

Siri’s petition to ICAN hasn’t made much headway with the FDA since it was filed in 2022. It’s one of several legal efforts Siri has filed for groups against multiple shots, including a petition in 2020 over hepatitis B vaccines.

In a 2023 letter in response to the polio petition, the agency’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Markswrote that the FDA “has not been able to reach a decision on your petition because it raises issues that require further review and analysis by agency officials.”

Siri’s petition targets IPOL, which is the only “single-antigen” polio vaccine currently available is recommended for use in the USA The vaccine was approved in the 1990s.

Many children who receive vaccinations against polio often do not receive IPOL, but rather one of several combination vaccines that mixes a harmless version of poliovirus with other recommended antigens for various vaccine-preventable diseases.

CDC says IPOL is “primarily used as a travel vaccine for adults.” The agency says “the body of scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports” the safety of polio vaccines.

Siri has hinted at plans for more petitions to the FDA after Kennedy is in charge of HHS.

“It will help if there are outsiders, outside attackers coming in. The FDA, for example, acts on petitions. If you want to license a product, you have to petition them. If you want a product to be withdrawn or re-evaluated, you have to typically often have to request them,” Siri told Del Bigtree, ICAN’s founder and a former Kennedy campaign spokesman, on her podcast last month.

“Someone from the outside has to request them,” Siri added.

Nikole Killion contributed to this report.