Trump said this week that he would discuss ending child vaccination programs with Bob Kennedy, the whackadoodle health nut and anti-vaccine activist he wants to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Via Salon:
Asked if he would approve of any decision by Kennedy to end vaccination programs — insofar as he has that power, which is largely delegated to the states — Trump cited autism as a reason why he might. "We're going to have a big discussion," he said. "The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it." His administration would get rid of some vaccinations if "I think it's dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial," Trump added.
Trump and Kennedy have long invoked a connection between autism and vaccines, even though studies continue to show there is none; most experts believe there are statistically more autistic individuals now than before because of improved diagnostic practices.
Many of the claims that vaccines cause autism can be traced back to a retracted 1998 study in The Lancet that has been widely discredited by subsequent research. Their debunked views on a range of medical topics — and Trump's promises to listen to Kennedy's counsel — have alarmed the scientific community over the possible implications on people's health and safety.
But wait, there's even more! Via the Times:
The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.
That campaign is just one front in the war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds.
Mr. Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, Covid vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions.
Sure, because all these doctors giving vaccines to children are simply too stupid to notice and a whack job who was a long-term heroin addict has more discerning epidemiological skills?
It has been widely rumored that El Cheato's son Barron is on the autism spectrum, which would make sense, since Trump is so fixated on his own superior genes, he'd have to come up with someone or something to blame. So vaccines!
