RFK Jr reportedly tried to block Covid-19 vaccinations at the height of the pandemic
Robert F Kennedy Jr. reportedly tried to block the historic and groundbreaking new Covid-19 vaccinations in 2021, six months after they began being rolled out at the height of the pandemic when many thousands of people were dying from the virus.
In a petition filed with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2021, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the $1.8 trillion Department of Health and Human Services – which at the time had no elected politician or civil servant – calling on health officials to revoke the government’s emergency authorization for the shots and not to approve any Covid vaccine in the future, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The petition, the newspaper reported, was filed on behalf of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that Kennedy, now 71, led and founded.
It argued that what Kennedy claimed were the risks of the vaccines outweighed the benefits. He also said they were not necessary because alternative treatments for Covid-19 were already available, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which had been promoted by Donald Trump, the then US president. However, public health experts found such alternative treatments ineffective, while the groundbreaking vaccines dramatically reduced both the lethality and severity of the coronavirus and ultimately helped save millions of lives in the US and around the world.
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna led the charge in the US to develop breakthrough vaccines in record time using new technology, also heavily backed by the Trump administration at a time when a terrified public was desperate to resist the virus, which people cannot fight had immunity.
Kennedy’s petition came five months after Trump announced that the FDA’s green light for the vaccine was imminent under a $20 billion program he dubbed Operation Warp Speed and described as “a monumental national achievement”.
Kennedy will come under pressure during confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate next week for his anti-vaccination stance and pushing for debunked theories, such as a link between the increase in childhood vaccination schedules and a rise in autism rates. Trump has said he supports an investigation into the issue, despite outrage from leading public health voices who have long viewed Kennedy’s views and outsized influence as dangerous but are now acutely alarmed that he is about to stands to become Minister of Health.
But there may be some distance between Trump and Kennedy on the issue of Covid vaccines and the broader issue of inoculation and research into new vaccines. Studies have found a link between mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis – inflammation of the heart and heart muscle – but considered the risk to be low.
In the meantime, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal On Saturday, pro-vaccine technology leader and philanthropist Bill Gates, the former CEO of Microsoft, said he had a three-hour dinner with Trump and found the president-elect to be receptive to vaccinations and vaccine development.
Describing their discussion as “pretty broad,” Gates said the two men discussed global health issues – a focus of the $75 billion Gates Foundation – and the development of a cure for HIV.
“In the Covid days he accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates told the Journal. “So I asked him if maybe the same thing could be done here, and I think we both got pretty excited about that.”
after newsletter promotion
The dining partners also discussed efforts to combat polio around the world, which the World Health Organization recently warned was at “high risk” of spreading in the decimated Palestinian territory of Gaza amid Israel’s military assault.
Gates added that he felt Trump was “energetic and looking forward to helping drive innovation. I was honestly impressed with how well he took a keen interest in the issues I was raising.”
Kennedy told reporters he was “all for” the polio vaccine – hours after Trump said Americans will “not lose the polio vaccine.”