Trump will address the end of childhood vaccination programs with RFK Jr

US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he will discuss ending childhood vaccination programs with vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whom elected to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Asked if he would support Kennedy if he decides to end childhood vaccination programs, Trump told Time magazine: “We’re going to have a good conversation. The autism rate is at a level that no one thought possible. If you look at in what is happening, there is something that is causing it.

Asked whether his administration could get rid of some vaccines, Trump said: “It could if I think it’s dangerous, if I think it’s not beneficial, but I don’t think in the end it’s going to be very controversial,” he said.

Asked if he believes childhood autism is related to vaccines, Trump responded: “No, I’m going to listen to Bobby,” referring to Kennedy.

Trump said he greatly respects Kennedy and his views on vaccines.

Kennedy, who opposed state and federal COVID-19 restrictions and was accused of spreading misinformation about the virus, has for years cast doubt on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, including endorsing a debunked link between vaccines and autism.

Trump has suggested in the past that vaccines could be linked to autism. “I want to see the figures. At the end of the studies we are doing we will know what is good and what is not.”

Retraction and discredit

Many of the claims that vaccines cause autism originate from a study published in 1998 in the medical journal The Lancet, which was retracted. The article, written by British doctor Andrew Wakefield, has been widely discredited.

Research, including a 2014 meta-analysis of studies involving more than 1.2 million children, found no link between vaccines and autism.

Autism advocacy group Autism Speaks says it “remains aligned with the scientific consensus, which confirms that vaccines do not cause autism.”

Former FDA commissioner and current Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb has said that if Kennedy follows through with his intentions to end vaccine mandates “it will cost lives in this country.”

He argued that lower vaccination rates could lead to large outbreaks of once nearly eradicated diseases such as measles. “For every 1,000 cases of measles in children there will be one death. And in this country we are not good at diagnosing and treating measles,” Gottlieb told CNBC last month.

Kennedy rejects the anti-vaccine label, but chaired Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that focuses on anti-vaccine messaging.

“He (Kennedy) doesn’t disagree with vaccines, with all vaccines. He probably disagrees with some,” Trump said.

If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which controls which vaccines Americans are recommended and when they should receive them. It also runs the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines for some children.

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