Trump victory gives RFK Jr. free rein to shape public health

Donald Trump’s election win opens the door for vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to play a significant role in the administration and drastically change the nation’s public health practices.

The former presidential candidate emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he challenged the safety of preventive shots. He’s also an opponent of drinking water fluoridation, a measure that has improved oral health for millions of Americans.

“RFK Jr. is probably the best financed and most influential anti-vaxxer, anti-science conspiracy theorist in the world,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University. “And now he’s likely to join at a high level in the White House—that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who thinks that health, safety and the environment are important.”

Kennedy has said that Trump offered him “control of the public health agencies,” citing potential leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.

“He’s going to help make America healthy again,” Trump said of Kennedy in his victory speech Wednesday. Trump said Kennedy should stay away from oil and gas, but “other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.”

Trump has encouraged Kennedy, the son of the late U.S. attorney general and senator who was assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign, to work on more specific issues.

“I said, ‘Bobby, you work on women’s health, you work on health, you work on what we eat,” Trump said at a rally in Macon, Georgia, on Sunday. “You work on pesticides. You work on everything.”

Experts and officials have previously raised concerns about Kennedy, saying his statements about vaccines and other pandemic-related issues are misleading and dangerous to public health. In July 2023, the Biden administration denounced comments by Kennedy that falsely claimed Jewish and Chinese people were “most immune” to COVID-19.

Jason Schwartz, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said the United States is “in for a very significant change in terms of the federal government’s approach to public health and the priorities and actions of our government health agencies.”

Kennedy and Trump have been linked by their skepticism of public health practices and scorn for experts and officials. During the pandemic, the former president promoted unproven COVID-19 therapies including hydroxychloroquine, the antiparasitic ivermectin, and plasma from previously infected people. In one press conference, Trump suggested using bleach to treat infections.

Even as Trump insisted in October 2020 that Americans were ready to move past the pandemic, his own health advisers continued warning that the toughest months were still to come.

Kennedy has criticized how Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease expert during the pandemic, handled the crisis. In his book “The Real Anthony Fauci,” he accuses the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of helping orchestrate “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy.”

Kennedy recently wrote on the social media platform X that Trump would move to remove fluoride from public water immediately after taking office. Jan. 20. Trump then told NBC News that he hadn’t yet spoken to Kennedy about fluoride, “but it sounds OK to me.”

2024 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.