President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to guide the Division of Well being and Human Companies on Thursday. If confirmed, the company that oversees the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration, and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being can be run by a vaccine-skeptic who has repeatedly pledged to overtake the nation’s well being requirements.
Listed below are a few of Kennedy’s sweeping concepts for the nation throughout Trump’s second time period:
Take away Fluoride From Consuming Water
Kennedy has pledged the upcoming Trump administration would advise “all U.S. water programs” to take away fluoride from public water, claiming the mineral “is an industrial waste” linked to “arthritis, bone fractures, bone most cancers, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental issues, and thyroid illness.”
That’s not true at levels beneficial by the Environmental Safety Company that have been lowered in 2015. The Nationwide Institutes of Well being outlines some well being dangers of excessive exposure to fluoride at larger ranges, which might result in uncommon negative effects. The NIH stated that some proof confirmed extreme publicity led to lower IQ in children however cited consultants as saying the proof was “weak and methodologically flawed.”
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention stated there’s no convincing evidence linking antagonistic well being results to fluoride consumption at beneficial quantities.
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that has been added to a lot of the nation’s ingesting water for many years and has been confirmed to dramatically cut back tooth decay. A 2017 examine additionally discovered the fluoridation program saves People more than $6 billion in dental prices.
Fluoridation has confirmed so profitable that the CDC lists it as one of many 10 greatest public health achievements of the twentieth century, alongside vaccination and the popularity of tobacco as a well being hazard.
Whereas Trump has expressed support for Kennedy’s stance, the president doesn’t have the flexibility to ban fluoride in all public ingesting water, which is underneath native, not federal, purview.
Undercut Federal Assist For Vaccination Packages
Kennedy is among the nation’s leading skeptics of vaccines, spreading conspiracy theories and junk science whereas claiming “no vaccine” is protected and efficient. He’s the founding father of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and has peddled debunked claims that inoculations trigger autism. Kennedy has additionally linked federal vaccination packages to the Holocaust.
All of these statements have been rejected by profession well being officers, who level to vaccines’ efficacy to eradicate smallpox, forestall hundreds of thousands of deaths from transmissible illness like measles and see the rates of polio fall 99% since 1988, in keeping with the World Well being Group.
Trump himself couldn’t singlehandedly ban a vaccine, though he may exert strain on federal companies that approve them. And putting in Kennedy as the pinnacle of the company that oversees the CDC and the NIH has nervous well being advocates.
Kennedy has insisted he has not particularly referred to as for an finish to vaccination, and he has pledged not to ban them. However his longstanding claims that federal officers have muddled security information has troubled well being officers.
Mandy Cohen, the director of the CDC, told The Washington Publish she was deeply involved by his choice.
“I don’t need to go backwards and see youngsters or adults undergo or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work,” she instructed the paper.
Change America’s Meals
Kennedy has made broad pledges to take away processed meals from faculty lunches and restrict using meals dyes. He not too long ago went on MSNBC to lambast colourful breakfast cereals, asking: “Why do now we have Froot Loops on this nation which have 18 or 19 elements and also you go to Canada and it’s bought two or three?”
That’s not correct: Froot Loops in Canada have an identical variety of elements to these offered within the U.S. However Canada has restricted using sure meals dyes. Regardless, the FDA says the artificial food dyes it’s accredited are protected primarily based on a “totality of scientific proof.”
He additionally attacked Trump’s personal weight-reduction plan, saying the “stuff that he eats is admittedly, like, dangerous.”
“Marketing campaign meals is at all times dangerous, however the meals that goes onto that airplane is, like, simply poison,” Kennedy stated throughout a current interview. “You could have a selection between — you don’t have the selection, you’re both given KFC or Massive Macs. That’s, like, if you’re fortunate, after which the remainder of the stuff I take into account sort of inedible.”
Intestine Elements Of The FDA, Promote Uncooked Milk And Different ‘Suppressed’ Therapies
Kennedy not too long ago instructed a reporter he believes total departments of the Meals and Drug Administration “should go.” He particularly referred to as out the diet division on the company, claiming consultants there weren’t “doing their job” and “not defending our children.”
He went on and stated he would root out unidentified corruption in federal companies: “As soon as they’re not corrupt, as soon as People are getting good indicators and so they’re allowed to make their very own decisions, they’re going to get quite a bit more healthy.”
Kennedy has additionally espoused the benefits of uncooked milk towards authorities recommendation. The FDA warns the product, which isn’t pasteurized, has typically been linked to outbreaks of sickness.
He stated final month different objects in his sights embody the “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, uncooked milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, nutritional vitamins, clear meals, sunshine, train, nutraceuticals and anything that advances human well being and may’t be patented by Pharma.”
Freedom To ‘Go Wild’ On Well being
Within the waning days of his marketing campaign, Trump stated he would endow Kennedy with the flexibility to “go wild” on well being as a part of his imaginative and prescient to Make America Nice, and Wholesome, Once more. That included a broad pledge to be in control of “girls’s well being.”
The dimensions of his potential position at HHS will put many different sides of on a regular basis life underneath his purview, with many questions on how he’ll act as Republicans proceed to focus on access to abortion, health care for transgender youth and the Affordable Care Act.
“Now we have a generational alternative to convey collectively the best minds in science, drugs, business, and authorities to place an finish to the power illness epidemic,” Kennedy wrote Thursday. “I’ll present People with transparency and entry to all the info to allow them to make knowledgeable decisions for themselves and their households.”
