Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed many of the medical community’s fears about him leading the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday by attacking vaccination during a Fox News interview.
Appearing on “Hannity” for an interview with President Donald Trump’s staunch ally Sean Hannity, Kennedy addressed the ongoing measles outbreak in the West Texas area that has caused at least two deaths.
A long-time anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist and activist, Kennedy argued that it was better for people to get infected with measles instead of being vaccinated.
“Measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that,” Kennedy said, and complained that the vaccine does not provide maternal immunity to measles.
However, that ignores the danger that comes with an infection. According to the University of Chicago’s medical school, “Three in 1,000 children who contract measles will die; however, if everyone is vaccinated, no children will die.” And that’s to say nothing of the severe complications that many of those who survived measles are forced to live with.
Kennedy also alleged that the measles vaccine is as deadly as the disease, a claim not supported by science.
“There are adverse events from the vaccine,” Kennedy said. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes—encephalitis and blindness, et cetera.”
But Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health notes that the vaccine is “very safe” and that serious reactions to the vaccine are rare. The school also explains, “The risks of severe illness, death, or lifelong complications from measles infection far outweigh the generally mild side effects some people experience following vaccination.”
In addition to his anti-vaccination lies, Kennedy expressed concern that families receiving public assistance are able to use government aid to purchase sugary drinks and said his agency would soon be taking action to prevent that from happening.
“We are literally poisoning [poor] neighborhoods by paying for 10% of their food stamps going to sugary drinks,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s interview further illustrates the danger in Trump’s decision to have an anti-science advocate in control of the nation’s leading health agencies.
When he wasn’t furthering his anti-vaccination mission, the two men praised Trump during the interview. Kennedy said he believed Trump had lost 30 pounds over the past few months, while Hannity asserted that Trump has “second-to-none” genetics.
In reality, Trump has kept his medical records out of the public eye even as he has lobbed attacks questioning the health of his political rivals, like former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Neither Kennedy nor Hannity addressed this lack of disclosure as they shared an on-air meal of hamburgers and fries.
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