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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks while Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, gestures toward him at a Turning Point Action Rally in Duluth, Georgia on October 23, 2024.
"RFK Jr. is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist," said one scientist. "A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Public health experts reacted with alarm Wednesday to reports that former President Donald Trump promised anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control over federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture should the Republican nominee defeat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in next week's election.
Speaking at last week's bigotry-laden campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump said that if he wins, he'll let Kennedy—who in August suspended his Independent presidential campaign and endorsed the GOP nominee—"go wild on health."
"I'm gonna let him go wild on the foods," Trump vowed. "I'm gonna let him go wild on the medicines."
In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Kennedy said that the GOP nominee promised him control of the Health and Human Services Department, Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, "and a few others."
Kennedy said control of these agencies "is key to making America healthy, because we've got to get off of seed oils, and we've got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture."
Despite his stated interest in tackling major public health issues including government corruption and Big Pharma greed, experts warned that, as Columbia University molecular biologist Lucky Tran
said earlier this week: "RFK Jr is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Kennedy is arguably the world's leading proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, including that vaccines cause autism. He has mixed spurious disparagement of the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including for Covid-19, with attacks on the well-documented deadly greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
There is some ideological overlap between Trump and Kennedy—who, like the ex-president is a former Democrat—including the shared belief in defunding federal public health agencies, purging their ranks, and investigating and possibly prosecuting some of their employees.
"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," Kennedy recently
wrote on social media.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Public health experts reacted with alarm Wednesday to reports that former President Donald Trump promised anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control over federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture should the Republican nominee defeat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in next week's election.
Speaking at last week's bigotry-laden campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump said that if he wins, he'll let Kennedy—who in August suspended his Independent presidential campaign and endorsed the GOP nominee—"go wild on health."
"I'm gonna let him go wild on the foods," Trump vowed. "I'm gonna let him go wild on the medicines."
In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Kennedy said that the GOP nominee promised him control of the Health and Human Services Department, Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, "and a few others."
Kennedy said control of these agencies "is key to making America healthy, because we've got to get off of seed oils, and we've got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture."
Despite his stated interest in tackling major public health issues including government corruption and Big Pharma greed, experts warned that, as Columbia University molecular biologist Lucky Tran
said earlier this week: "RFK Jr is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Kennedy is arguably the world's leading proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, including that vaccines cause autism. He has mixed spurious disparagement of the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including for Covid-19, with attacks on the well-documented deadly greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
There is some ideological overlap between Trump and Kennedy—who, like the ex-president is a former Democrat—including the shared belief in defunding federal public health agencies, purging their ranks, and investigating and possibly prosecuting some of their employees.
"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," Kennedy recently
wrote on social media.
Public health experts reacted with alarm Wednesday to reports that former President Donald Trump promised anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control over federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture should the Republican nominee defeat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in next week's election.
Speaking at last week's bigotry-laden campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump said that if he wins, he'll let Kennedy—who in August suspended his Independent presidential campaign and endorsed the GOP nominee—"go wild on health."
"I'm gonna let him go wild on the foods," Trump vowed. "I'm gonna let him go wild on the medicines."
In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Kennedy said that the GOP nominee promised him control of the Health and Human Services Department, Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, "and a few others."
Kennedy said control of these agencies "is key to making America healthy, because we've got to get off of seed oils, and we've got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture."
Despite his stated interest in tackling major public health issues including government corruption and Big Pharma greed, experts warned that, as Columbia University molecular biologist Lucky Tran
said earlier this week: "RFK Jr is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Kennedy is arguably the world's leading proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, including that vaccines cause autism. He has mixed spurious disparagement of the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including for Covid-19, with attacks on the well-documented deadly greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
There is some ideological overlap between Trump and Kennedy—who, like the ex-president is a former Democrat—including the shared belief in defunding federal public health agencies, purging their ranks, and investigating and possibly prosecuting some of their employees.
"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," Kennedy recently
wrote on social media.