Scott Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration during Trump’s previous term, on Friday warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could “cost lives” if confirmed as the next secretary of Health and Human Services. Via the Washington Post:
“You’re going to see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down,” Gottlieb said on CNBC, referencing Kennedy’s longtime criticism of federal recommendations for childhood immunizations, and noting a recent decline in childhood vaccination rates. The nation is approaching a “tipping point,” Gottlieb said, where a continued decline in childhood vaccines could soon lead to measles outbreaks and deaths of children.
“We’re going to start seeing epidemics of diseases that have long been vanquished, and, God forbid, we see polio reemerge in this country,” he said.
Gottlieb said he had been warning senators against confirming Kennedy to run the federal health department, although he did not identify with whom he had spoken. He added that Kennedy, who founded one of the country’s most prominent antivaccine groups, had “smart people” around him who could take immediate steps to affect Americans’ access to vaccines, such as changing federal vaccine recommendations.
“There’s a lot of things that they could do day one, very easily, administratively,” Gottlieb said.
