At his rally on Sunday at New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard, former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mentioned that if elected he would permit wellness conspiracist and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild on well being.” Kennedy, a former Democrat and scion of the well-known political household, initially ran as an impartial third-party and potential spoiler candidate, and has spent the higher a part of 20 years spreading conspiracy theories that will probably inform the insurance policies of a Trump administration.
In August, Kennedy suspended his presidential marketing campaign and threw his weight behind Trump. (Each the Trump and Kennedy campaigns obtained help from billionaire donor Timothy Mellon.) There have been early indications that he might need a spot in a attainable Trump administration, notably in some areas centered on well being. Kennedy himself even created a by-product of Trump’s MAGA slogan together with his personal Make America Wholesome Once more, or MAHA. However Trump’s speech appears to point that Kennedy would certainly have a spot within the cupboard, maybe working Well being and Human Companies (HHS).
Kennedy has since hit the marketing campaign path stumping for Trump alongside one other former Democrat and conspiracy theorist, Tulsi Gabbard.
Kennedy has spent years spreading well being mis- and disinformation, notably about vaccines. In 2014, Kennedy joined Kids’s Well being Protection (CHD) as a member of its board. CHD pushes debunked conspiracy theories linking circumstances like autism with vaccines and different environmental components. In 2021, Meta banned Kennedy’s Instagram account for spreading disinformation concerning the Covid-19 vaccine, and he was named by the Middle for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as certainly one of 12 individuals accountable for 65 p.c of vaccine disinformation throughout Instagram, Fb, and Twitter. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kennedy’s personal profile, in addition to that of CHD, started to rise. CHD raised more cash in 2021 than it ever had earlier than.
Meta reinstated Kennedy’s Instagram account final yr when he introduced his run for the presidency, and it stays up, even if he’s now not working for workplace. CHD stays banned from Meta’s platforms. Extra just lately, Kennedy has echoed unfounded conspiracies that would undermine religion within the integrity of the 2024 elections.
Throughout his presidential marketing campaign, Kennedy tried to distance himself from the anti-vax motion. Nonetheless, he continued to unfold disinformation, like falsely saying that the Biden administration had violated the Nuremburg Code by mandating vaccines. And his imaginative and prescient for making America wholesome once more is drastic. Final Friday, he posted on X to warn the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) that its “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, uncooked milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, [and] hydroxychloroquine” was about to finish.
The Division of Well being and Human Companies oversees 13 businesses, together with the FDA and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH). In an interview with NBC Information whereas he was nonetheless working for president, Kennedy mentioned he would intestine these businesses, which he has mentioned at the moment are captured by firms. He would additionally impose extra testing on already current vaccines, which well being consultants instructed NBC would end in many youngsters being unable to get vaccinated. (Trump, for his half, has claimed he would withhold funding from faculties that require vaccination.) Kennedy’s plan would additionally embrace dismissing scientists on the NIH who research infectious ailments, focusing as an alternative on the environmental components and vaccines that he believes trigger diseases.
Throughout his marketing campaign, he held a well being coverage roundtable with medical doctors that pushed pretend Covid-19 therapies.
Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung instructed WIRED that “President Trump introduced a Trump-Vance transition management group to provoke the method of making ready for what comes after the election. However formal discussions of who will serve in a second Trump Administration is [sic] untimely.”
