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RFK Jr. is already preparing to take over the federal health authorities


RFK Jr. is already preparing to take over the federal health authorities

If Donald Trump wins the November election, vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could have more power and control over health and nutrition policy than the possible future president's Cabinet secretaries.

According to a Thursday report from The Washington Post, Kennedy met with Trump's transition team to discuss what his future might be in a second Trump administration. Sources who spoke to the post Say Kennedy has been proposed for a role as White House czar – a position that would put him in direct contact with Trump and across the president's Cabinet.

Trump's plans for Kennedy to take over the nation's health authorities pose something of a problem, as the conspiracy theorist may find it difficult to get past the required Senate confirmation vote required to confirm an executive agency appointment. However, he could get around this by taking on an oversight role in the White House

Sources also said post that Kennedy is already making initial plans if he were to be accepted into Trump's White House. “The president asked me to eliminate government corruption and conflict and end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said post on Wednesday. “He wants to achieve measurable results in two years and return these agencies to their long tradition of evidence-based science and gold standard medicine.”

Kennedy has reportedly prepared 30/60/9-day plans for the period after Trump's possible inauguration, while also drawing up lists of potential health care workers. They include siblings Casey and Calley Means, former Trump Covid-19 adviser Marty Makary and former Trump CDC director Robert Redfield. ​​

Earlier this week, Kennedy boasted that “President Trump promised me control of the public health agencies, namely HHS and its subagencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and several others… and then the USDA as well,” during a rally on Thursday, Trump told the audience that in addition to broad control of public health agencies, Kennedy would also work on “women's health.”

On Sunday, Trump told his supporters at a rally at Madison Square Garden that he would let Kennedy “go crazy” on health, food and medicine.

Kennedy – an environmental lawyer by profession – has few medical and public health qualifications. His appeal to Republicans focuses largely on his vaccine conspiracies. He has been one of the most prominent mouthpieces for false claims that vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder and has suggested that vaccine research is responsible for the emergence of diseases such as AIDS, Spanish flu and Lyme disease.

On Wednesday, Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the Trump transition party, made it clear that Kennedy's beliefs on vaccinations were one of the main reasons he could play in a Trump administration.

“I spent two and a half hours with Bobby Kennedy Jr. this week,” Lutnick told CNN. “What he explained was that when he was born we had three vaccinations and autism was one in 10,000. Now a baby is being born with 76 vaccinations because they waived product liability for vaccines in 1986. And the best part is, they started paying the people at NIH, right? They pay them part of the money for the vaccine manufacturers.”

Lutnick insisted that Kennedy wanted to “personally review the data” on the vaccines to prove that they were indeed safe. “He says, 'If you give me the data – I just want the data – I'll take the data and show that it's not safe and that if you remove product liability, the companies will immediately get rid of these vaccines in the market.' “

But Kennedy's plans go far beyond vaccines. Last week, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “the FDA's war on public health is about to end.”

“This includes the aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that promotes human health and cannot be patented.” of Pharma,” he added. “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Keep your records and 2. Pack your bags.”

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Very few of the points made in Kennedy's rant are “suppressed.” Rather, Kennedy and a growing faction on the right believe that criticism of efforts to present pseudoscientific health trends as established science amounts to a form of censorship and oppression. “I don't think he understands the American health care system,” said former Obama health adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel post. “We saw these people doing mischief, but not very successfully.”

On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris commented on the potentially unprecedented influence Kennedy could have. “Trump has indicated that the person who would be responsible for the health care of the American people is RFK Jr., who regularly promotes junk science and crazy conspiracy theories,” she told reporters in Madison, Wisconsin. “He once expressed support for a nationwide abortion ban. This is exactly the last person in America who should be setting health care policy for America’s families and children.”

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