WASHINGTON — Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a baby, says any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees looking for Senate affirmation ought to “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine.
“Efforts to undermine public confidence in confirmed cures are usually not simply uninformed — they’re harmful,” McConnell mentioned in an announcement Friday. “Anybody looking for the Senate’s consent to serve within the incoming Administration would do properly to avoid even the looks of affiliation with such efforts.”
The 82-year-old lawmaker’s assertion gave the impression to be directed at Trump’s choose for well being secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after a report that one in all his advisers filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022. That vaccine is broadly thought of to have halted the illness in most elements of the world.
McConnell’s phrases have been an indication that Kennedy, who has lengthy superior the debunked concept that vaccines trigger autism, might face some resistance within the soon-to-be GOP-controlled Senate.
“Mr. Kennedy believes the Polio Vaccine ought to be out there to the general public and completely and correctly studied,” mentioned Katie Miller, the transition spokeswoman for Kennedy, in response to questions.
The New York Occasions reported that the petition was filed by a lawyer now serving to Kennedy choose candidates for federal well being positions within the incoming administration.
Any particular person or firm can file a petition with the Meals and Drug Administration, which usually fields a whole lot of requests at any time relating to numerous meals, drug and medical points. Most petitions are denied, however the FDA is required to answer every one in writing.
Vaccines have been confirmed to be secure and efficient in laboratory testing and in real-world use in a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of individuals over many years — they’re thought of among the many handiest public well being measures in historical past.
McConnell contracted polio at 2 years previous however survived due to “the miraculous mixture of recent medication and a mom’s love,” in response to the assertion. He praised the “saving energy” of the polio vaccine for the “hundreds of thousands who got here after me.”
Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., mentioned in a submit on X that it was “outrageous and harmful for individuals within the Trump Transition to attempt to eliminate the polio vaccine that has nearly eradicated polio in America and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
He mentioned Kennedy ought to make clear his personal place on it.
Trump introduced final month his choice of Kennedy, saying Kennedy would work to guard People “from dangerous chemical compounds, pollution, pesticides, pharmaceutical merchandise, and meals components.”
However that choose was met with alarm from scientists and public well being officers, who concern Kennedy would unwind lifesaving public well being initiatives reminiscent of vaccines.
Kennedy has pushed different conspiracy theories relating to vaccines, reminiscent of that COVID-19 might have been “ethnically focused” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language individuals, feedback he later mentioned have been taken out of context. He has repeatedly introduced up the Holocaust when discussing vaccines and public well being mandates.
Kennedy mentioned he plans to remake the Division of Well being and Human Providers, an company with sprawling attain and a $1.3 trillion finances, if he’s accredited. He has prompt the FDA is beholden to “massive pharma,” and his anti-vaccine nonprofit has referred to 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 “massive pharma” as a result of it receives a lot of its finances from trade 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 a variety of 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 in all its attorneys within the lawsuit.
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