WASHINGTON – Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, stated any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees searching for affirmation ought to “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine.
“Efforts to undermine public confidence in confirmed cures usually are not simply uninformed — they’re harmful,” McConnell stated in a Friday assertion. “Anybody searching for the Senate’s consent to serve within the incoming Administration would do effectively to avoid even the looks of affiliation with such efforts.”
The 82-year-old lawmaker’s assertion seemed to be directed at Trump’s nominee for well being secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after a report that one among his advisors filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022. It was an indication that Kennedy, who has lengthy superior the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, may face resistance within the soon-to-be GOP-controlled Senate.
“Mr. Kennedy believes the Polio Vaccine ought to be obtainable to the general public and completely and correctly studied,” stated Katie Miller, the transition spokeswoman for Kennedy, in response to questions.
The New York Occasions reported Friday {that a} lawyer who helps Kennedy choose candidates for well being official positions filed a petition to get the federal government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine — broadly thought-about to have halted the illness in most elements of the world — and pause distribution of a number of different vaccines. The Washington Put up additionally confirmed the petition. The AP has not independently confirmed the petition, which was filed in 2022, in keeping with the Occasions.
Vaccines have been confirmed to be protected and efficient in laboratory testing and in real-world use in tons of of hundreds of thousands of individuals over many years — they’re thought-about among the many handiest public well being measures in historical past.
McConnell contracted polio at 2 years previous however survived, he stated Friday, due to “the miraculous mixture of contemporary drugs and a mom’s love.” He praised the “saving energy” of the polio vaccine for the “hundreds of thousands who got here after me.”
Senate Democratic Chief Chuck Schumer additionally responded Friday to the Occasions report. In a put up on X, previously Twitter, he known as it “outrageous and harmful for folks within the Trump Transition to try to eliminate the polio vaccine that has just about eradicated polio in America and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
He known as on Kennedy to make clear his personal place on it.
Trump nominated Kennedy last month, saying he would work to guard Individuals “from dangerous chemical substances, pollution, pesticides, pharmaceutical merchandise, and meals components.”
However his nomination was instantly met with alarm from scientists and public well being officers, who worry Kennedy would unwind life-saving public well being initiatives, like vaccines.
Kennedy has pushed different conspiracy theories concerning vaccines, reminiscent of that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language folks, feedback he later stated have been taken out of context. He has repeatedly brought up the Holocaust when discussing vaccines and public health mandates.
Kennedy stated he plans to remake the Department of Health and Human Services, an company with sprawling attain and a $1.3 trillion price range, if he’s authorised. He has prompt the Meals and Drug Administration is beholden to “huge pharma,” and his anti-vaccine nonprofit has known as on it to cease utilizing COVID-19 vaccines.
In the course of the COVID-19 epidemic, his nonprofit group, Kids’s Well being Protection, petitioned the FDA to halt using all COVID vaccines. The group has alleged that the FDA is beholden to “huge pharma” as a result of it receives a lot of its price range from business charges and a few staff who’ve departed the company have gone on to work for drugmakers.
Kids’s Well being Protection at present has a lawsuit pending in opposition to various information organizations, amongst them The Related Press, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to establish misinformation, together with about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took go away from the group when he introduced his run for president however is listed as one among its attorneys within the lawsuit.
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