RFK Jr. Wastes No Time Revisiting Childhood Vaccine Insurance policies

Effectively that didn’t take lengthy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the just-enshrined director of the Division of Well being and Human Providers, has already signaled that he could attempt to change the nation’s vaccination schedule for youngsters.

RFK Jr. made the remarks throughout his speech at a ceremony held on Tuesday welcoming him as the brand new HHS secretary. He introduced that he would type a fee to review the childhood vaccine schedule as a attainable issue for the rise of power ailments in People, amongst different supposedly “taboo” topics. Kennedy earlier appeared to vow Republican lawmakers that he wouldn’t change the present vaccine suggestions established by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. To be clear, RFK Jr. didn’t explicitly say he would change the vaccination schedule, however by organising this fee, he’s laying the groundwork for that risk.

Final Thursday, Kennedy received the Senate’s blessing for his nomination to HHS in a largely party-line vote (Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was the lone Republican “no”); later that day, he was formally sworn in as the brand new chief of the federal company that oversees the CDC, the Meals and Drug Administration, and different businesses that defend the nation’s public well being. However RFK’s ascension was initially removed from sure.

The previous environmental lawyer endured blistering questions on his lengthy historical past of supporting the anti-vaccination motion throughout Senate committee hearings over his nomination. And there have been a number of Republican senators who expressed unease about his health for the place given his stance on vaccines. Essentially the most distinguished of those critics was Louisiana Senator Invoice Cassidy, a former doctor and a member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

Per week previous to the bigger Senate vote, nevertheless, Cassidy modified his thoughts about RFK Jr. and delivered the pivotal tiebreaker vote to safe the Finance Committee’s endorsement of Kennedy’s nomination. In his ground speech, Cassidy mentioned that he was swayed by assurances from each Kennedy and Trump that he would defend the general public well being advantages of vaccination. At one level, Cassidy explicitly mentioned that Kennedy would “keep the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ suggestions with out modifications.”

Cassidy, for his half, mentioned in a social media post Wednesday that he doesn’t see RFK’s announcement as going again on his promise.

The commitments I acquired from RFK Jr. and the administration by no means precluded him from conducting sound scientific analysis. I’m assured any respected evaluation will additional affirm settled science of the security and efficacy of the childhood vaccine schedule. The outbreak in West…

— U.S. Senator Invoice Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) February 19, 2025

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is a panel of outdoor consultants assembled by the CDC. Their suggestions, formally adopted by the CDC, strongly affect which vaccines are routinely supplied to the general public. For example, states usually mandate that youngsters should obtain vaccines universally really helpful by the ACIP, such because the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, earlier than they’ll enter public college. Insurance policy are additionally typically required to cowl ACIP-recommended vaccines with none cost-sharing.

The ACIP’s latest members have been enshrined simply earlier than Trump took workplace, and it’s doubtless that these members and the ACIP as an entire would resist a direct try and have their suggestions unduly influenced by RFK Jr. or the Trump administration, no less than for now. But it surely’s nonetheless attainable that these new members won’t be allowed to affix the ACIP, and/or that current members will likely be compelled off to make room for individuals extra consistent with RFK Jr.’s considering. Both method, regardless of his promise to Senator Cassidy, RFK Jr. now appears poised to no less than attempt to undermine, or doubtlessly disrupt, the nation’s standing vaccine insurance policies.

On the identical day as Kennedy’s swearing in, the Trump administration issued an govt order establishing the “Make America Wholesome Once more” fee—a reference to one among Kennedy’s slogans deployed throughout his earlier failed presidential run. The order requires the federal authorities to take motion in reducing People’ charges of power ailments and ending childhood power illness altogether. Beneath the umbrella of this govt order, Kennedy promised on Tuesday that the fee will examine “previously taboo or insufficiently scrutinized” attainable elements for the rise in power illness.

Alongside the childhood vaccine schedule, Kennedy additionally introduced up electromagnetic radiation, sure pesticides, ultra-processed meals, anti-depressant drugs, and microplastics as different potential culprits for power illness, including that nothing can be “off-limits.”

Research have tied a few of these named elements to potential well being points, corresponding to endocrine-disrupting chemical substances like PFAS. However businesses just like the FDA have already acknowledged the potential harms of PFAS and comparable substances, and scientists are working to higher perceive these harms. Different elements like electromagnetic radiation have additionally been studied, although with out a lot to point out for it. Excessive-frequency electromagnetic fields—the sort we use for X-rays—are well-known to be harmful with an excessive amount of publicity. However research typically haven’t supported a hyperlink between non-ionizing EMFs—the extra widespread sort emitted by our cell telephones and different family home equipment—and destructive well being results, together with cancer.

And to be clear, there is no such thing as a strong proof that our present vaccination schedules are harming us, or that getting too many vaccines at once is inflicting power ailments in youngsters (a standard canard of the anti-vaccination motion).

All through his speech, Kennedy argued that his fee would do its utmost to rigorously research these elements. “No matter perception or suspicion I’ve expressed up to now, I’m keen to topic all of them to the scrutiny of unbiased science,” Kennedy mentioned.

Sadly, any cursory have a look at Kennedy’s monitor document would throw that assurance into query. For no less than 20 years, RFK Jr. has repeatedly misrepresented the proof on vaccine security and different vital well being points, even after his work has been picked aside by precise scientists (and even retracted once). Now that he’s been given a clean verify to sway the nation’s public well being agenda to his liking, it’s laborious to see how that stubbornness to actuality will reduce to any diploma.