Trump Teases Vaccine Bans With RFK Jr. in Potential Health Role

On the eve of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump isn’t saying no to tearing down some of the country’s public health pillars if reelected. In recent interviews and public events, Trump has endorsed eliminating water fluoridation and left open the possibility of banning certain vaccines—ideas that have been floated by the recent third-party candidate, potential Trump appointee, and brain worm host Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

While RFK is still on the ballot in many states, he suspended his third-party campaign in late August, endorsing Trump for president at the same time. He’s remained a vocal Trump backer since then, though it’s been an open question as to how much power RFK and his idiotic, often contradictory ideology could wield in a potential second term for Trump. Lately, Trump has signaled that he’s all aboard the RFK train.

A week ago Monday, Kennedy told supporters that Trump promised him sweeping control “of the public health agencies,” including the FDA, CDC, and USDA. Last Thursday, NBC News reported that RFK is being eyed for a “key health role” in a Trump administration, potentially heading a project that would focus on tackling childhood chronic disease in the same vein as Operation Warp Speed, the Trump-backed program that accelerated the development of the first-generation covid-19 vaccines. And at a event that same day, Trump stated that Kennedy would be “going to work on health and women’s health,” that he would ask him to look at the “food supply,” and that Kennedy could “do anything he wants.”

In an interview with NBC News released on Sunday, Trump reiterated that Kennedy would have a “big role in the administration” if he won. When Trump was specifically asked if he would be willing to ban certain vaccines at the behest of Kennedy, he responded: “Well, I’m going to talk to [Kennedy] and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views.”

Trump also said that he would be on board with banning fluoride from the water supply, a proposal that Kennedy claimed the Trump White House would push for earlier that Friday. “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me,” Trump said about the plan. “You know, it’s possible.”

Despite Kennedy’s protestations that he is not “anti-vaccine,” he has consistently and inaccurately attacked the practice of vaccination, particularly in his former position as head of the anti-vaccination group Children’s Health Defense. He’s repeatedly spread misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of covid-19 vaccines specifically (some studies have found that the vaccines prevented over a million deaths in the U.S. alone). Both he and Trump have also endorsed a false connection between vaccination in general and the development of autism spectrum disorder. And in a recent CNN interview with Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, Lutnick stated that Kennedy could push for the removal of some vaccines from the market if he so chose.

There is a more legitimate scientific debate about the positives and negatives of water fluoridation, which is intended to reduce people’s risk of cavities. Some studies have shown that excessive fluoride exposure, especially in the womb, may raise the risk of neurobehavioral issues in children, for instance. Some experts have also called for a reevaluation of water fluoridation programs in areas where fluoride is readily available through toothpaste products. But many of the specific claims Kennedy has made about the harms of fluoridation, such as it raising the risk of cancer, have next to no evidence supporting them.

The extent of RFK’s sway over public health in the U.S. in a Trump-led White House still isn’t clear. He would likely face fierce opposition from Democrat and possibly some Republican senators if Trump attempted to appoint him to any cabinet position. And in Lutnick’s CNN interview, he claimed that Kennedy would not be getting a formal job at the Department of Health and Human Services. But even if he only remained an informal advisor, his influence could cause plenty of havoc within agencies like the CDC and FDA, and it could certainly endanger lives—as it already has.

In the fall of 2019, the Pacific Island nation of Samoa experienced a massive epidemic of measles that killed at least 83 people, mostly young children. Months before, Kennedy had visited Samoa, helping fuel a wave of mistrust that led to lower vaccination rates, following the deaths of two children in 2018 from a medical error unrelated to the measles vaccine itself (nurses had mixed an expired muscle relaxant in with the vaccine instead of water as usual). Kennedy would later bravely downplay any role he had in the debacle, stating that he never told anyone not to get vaccinated.

There are plenty of reasons why a Trump administration would be disastrous for the U.S., but letting a worm-addled coward like RFK anywhere near our public health agencies is high up there on the list.