Kennedy, who last month suspended his Independent presidential bid, has been appointed an honorary co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team. The move has stoked fears among the public health experts that the anti-vaccine activist could have an outsized influence on the former president’s health policies in a potential second term.
Trump has not committed to a specific role for Kennedy, but in a leaked phone call in July the former president suggested Kennedy would have a “big” role in his administration.
Health experts fear that Kennedy would either appoint himself to a high-ranking position at a public health agency or appoint another anti-vaccine activist with no scientific background.
“From a health perspective this would be nothing short of chaos,” said Robert Murphy, a professor of infectious disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Trump has expressed wildly different views on vaccines. Before entering politics, Trump was an avowed vaccine skeptic, often parroting the widely discredited theory that childhood vaccines, or at least high doses of them, cause autism.
Kennedy has also said conflicting things on vaccines in the past. He has denied being completely against vaccines but has frequently promoted debunked theories about them.
During a congressional hearing last year, Kennedy denied that he urged people to not get vaccinated, but two years prior said on a podcast that he regularly tells others to not vaccinate their children.
During a CNN interview last December, Kennedy again denied saying no vaccines are “safe and effective,” despite saying so in another interview just a few months before.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
