United States: In the clearest indication yet, should he become President, Donald Trump suggested vaccines could be banned if Robert F Kennedy Jr gets supreme powers to run public health policy.
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If Trump wins Tuesday’s presidential election, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and former independent candidate who dropped out and backed Trump would have a “big role in the administration” as the Guardian reported.
Trump said he’d speak with Kennedy about vaccinations.
Although Kennedy has incessantly alleged that childhood vaccines lead to autism, a theory which scientists have long debunked.
In the past week or so, he has said that Trump has assured him he will actually have control over a whole range of public health agencies if he were to return to the White House, which could allow him to do what his most radical theories call for.
Trump supports Kennedy’s claims
That was not contradicted by Trump, who said he’d be willing to ban some vaccines.
As per the Republican nominee, “Well, I’m going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views,” NBC reported.
He also seemed to honor Kennedy’s vow – taken on his social media last Friday – of a fluoride ban in the tap water supply, which public health experts endorse as an effective means to Fight against dental disease.
That Kennedy mentioned it as an “industrial waste” and associated it with cancer. Moreover, health groups stressed that it is safe.
On being asked by NBC to express his views regarding getting rid of water fluoridation, Trump stated, “Well, I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me. You know, it’s possible,” the Guardian reported.
Last week, Kennedy, who sits on Trump’s transition team, claimed he had been promised “control” over a host of public health and food safety agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, ceCenteror Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration.
If he wins, Trump told a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last week, he’d let Kennedy “go wild on food” and “go wild on medicines.”
The weight Kennedy’s views might bring to bear in an administration was given greater credibility by Howard Lutnick, the Trump campaign co-chair, who told CNN he could be allowed to review federal data on vaccine safety.
Lutnick mentioned, “He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe.'”
“Let’s give him the data. I think it’ll be pretty cool to give him the data. Let’s see what he comes up with. I think it’s pretty fun,” he continued.