President Donald Trump\u2019s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services \u201cis an extraordinarily bad choice for the health of the American people,\u201d Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, warned Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was worried we could go low but not this low,\u201d Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine & Grady Health System, wrote of the pick. <\/p>\n
Although Trump signaled in the runup to the election that he planned to let the vaccine skeptic \u201cgo wild\u201d on health, food and medicine, Kennedy\u2019s official selection for the nation\u2019s top health post sent shockwaves through the public health world, concerned about his potential effects on vaccination rates, research on infectious diseases and misrepresentation of established science. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,\u201d Trump said in a statement Thursday. \u201cThe Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Advocates for public health did not mince words with their criticism. <\/p>\n
\u201cRobert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a clear and present danger to the nation\u2019s health. He shouldn\u2019t be allowed in the building at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation\u2019s public health agency,\u201d Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, said in a statement. \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his Secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that we see and know about what a Trump administration would look like would devastate public health in this country,\u201d said Osterholm, who noted that he\u2019d served in a health policy role in every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan\u2019s and thinks of himself as a \u201cnonpartisan public health soldier.\u201d <\/p>\n
But even some skeptics acknowledged that they agree with parts of Kennedy\u2019s ideas, including around fixing the food system. <\/p>\n
Here are some of the areas where Kennedy has said he\u2019s planning to make change. <\/p>\n
In a statement after Thursday\u2019s announcement, Kennedy said he\u2019s eager to work with HHS employees to rid public health agencies of \u201ccorporate capture\u201d and \u201cclean up corruption.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,\u201d Kennedy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cTogether we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n
Several key agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <\/strong>and the US Food and Drug Administration fall under the HHS umbrella, and Kennedy fired a broadside at the FDA late last month. <\/p>\n \u201cFDA\u2019s war on public health is about to end,\u201d he said in a social media post. \u201cThis includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can\u2019t be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.\u201d <\/p>\n That warning followed comments Kennedy has made about ending National Institutes of Health research into infectious diseases, putting doctors in the field on edge. <\/p>\n Routine childhood vaccinations are projected to prevent hundreds of millions of illnesses, tens of millions of hospitalizations and more than 1 million deaths among people born between 1994 and 2023, according to the CDC. Vaccines are thoroughly tested before their release, and their safety is monitored on an ongoing basis. <\/p>\n However, Kennedy has promoted false claims about vaccination for years and founded the nonprofit Children\u2019s Health Defense, which promotes anti-vaccine material such as the recent documentary \u201cVaxed III: Authorized to Kill.\u201d <\/p>\n In July 2023, Kennedy told Fox News host Jesse Watters that vaccines cause autism, a claim that has been repeatedly disproved. Among other things, he has also misstated the contents of vaccines, falsely claimed there is convincing evidence that the 1918 influenza pandemic and HIV both originated with vaccine research, and repeatedly touted misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. <\/p>\n The day after the election, however, Kennedy said he was \u201cnot going to take away anybody\u2019s vaccines. I\u2019ve never been anti-vaccine. I\u2019m going to make sure the scientific safety studies and efficacies are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.\u201d <\/p>\n Many public health experts are skeptical. Dr. Jason Schwartz, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said the softened stance was an \u201celeventh hour attempt to sanitize his reputation and rebrand himself as a reasonable champion of chronic disease prevention.\u201d <\/p>\n Kennedy has said the second Trump administration would advise that fluoride be removed from the nation\u2019s water supply. \u201cOn January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S\u200b. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,\u201d he wrote in a social media post. <\/p>\n Fluoride, a mineral found naturally in the environment and in some foods, can also be a byproduct of certain industries. It has been added to many public water systems across the country since 1945 in an effort to prevent tooth decay by strengthening the protective outer layer of enamel. More than 60% of the US population \u2014 about 209 million people \u2014 are served by drinking water systems that have been fluoridated, according to CDC data. <\/p>\n High levels of fluoride have been linked with lowered IQ in children, according to a federal review, but the American Dental Association calls fluoridated water \u201cthe single most effective public health measure to prevent tooth decay.\u201d <\/p>\n In September, a federal judge ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to take additional measures to regulate fluoride in drinking water because of the possible risk to children\u2019s intellectual development. <\/p>\n US District Judge Edward Chen ruled that while it\u2019s not clear whether the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing a drop in IQ in kids, there\u2019s enough risk to warrant investigation and that the EPA needs to take further action in regulating it. The ruling did not state what actions the EPA needs to take, and the agency is reviewing the decision. <\/p>\n \u201cI think fluoride is on the way out because of that court decision,\u201d Kennedy told MSNBC last week. \u201cI think the faster it goes out, the better. I\u2019m not going to compel anybody to take it out, but I\u2019m going to advise the water districts about their legal liability, their legal obligation to their service to their constituents. And I\u2019m going to give them good information about the science, and I think fluoride will disappear.\u201d <\/p>\n Some <\/strong>experts agree that despite the politicization of the issue, more research is needed to understand the effect on fluoride \u2013 not just on young children but for the general population, as well. <\/p>\n \u201cI think that health effects of fluoride on young children, particularly in the realm of neurodevelopment, have been sufficiently studied such that it has now been identified that a hazard to child IQ is present. However, I would argue that more research is needed to better understand impacts of chronic low level fluoride exposure on adult health outcomes because that research is scarce,\u201d Malin said. <\/p>\n Kennedy has advocated for regulating chemicals in food and limiting access to soda and processed foods through school lunches and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program \u2013 as well as proposing an idea to swap tallow fat in for seed oils to make McDonald\u2019s french fries healthier. <\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s messaging on food policy has resonated with some health experts in that field. <\/p>\n \u201cThey are calling for fixing the food system, doing something to coordinate and address diet-related chronic diseases, stopping corporate power, eliminating conflicts of interest between industry and government, getting toxic chemicals out of the food supply, and doing everything possible to refocus the food environment and dietary advice on health,\u201d food policy researcher Marion Nestle wrote on her Food Politics blog. <\/p>\n She was referring to a roundtable discussion on nutrition and policy led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, which involved Kennedy and others who Nestle described as \u201cmainly influencers.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThese are things I\u2019ve been writing about here for years,\u201d she said on her blog. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to argue with any of this and I won\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services \u201cis an extraordinarily bad choice for the health of the American people,\u201d Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, warned Thursday. \u201cI was worried we could go low but not …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":468,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Vaccines<\/h2>\n
Fluoridated water<\/h2>\n
Food<\/h2>\n
\n
<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n