President-elect Donald Trump has met with Robert F Kennedy Jr., a notorious vaccine denier, today. The two will discuss “the issues pertaining to vaccines and immunizations.” And whatever tiny spark of hope that maybe Trump was pandering to the anti-vaccine wing nuts for votes has been put out with a bucket of water.
Kennedy, who is a member of the family that is the icon of liberalism, has been increasingly attacking vaccines and their supposed dangers. Kennedy continues to push the trope that vaccines cause autism, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it simply does not. Moreover, Kennedy pushed the CDC whistleblower myth, which has been debunked so many times, that I should create a macro just to respond to it whenever it appears in a comment thread.
Kennedy has also stated that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, a belief that has been rejected by real science many times. Kennedy checks off most of the key denier talking points for vaccines, including comparing the damage done by vaccines to the holocaust. He made that comment while promoting an anti-vaccine propaganda film, Trace Amounts.
Trump himself shares many of the Kennedy’s anti-science beliefs on vaccines, including claiming that there is a link between vaccines and autism. During a 2015 GOP primary debate, Trump said
I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time. Same exact amount, but you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump–I mean, it looks just like it’s meant for a horse, not for a child, and we’ve had so many instances, people that work for me. … [in which] a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back and a week later had a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.
One of the things I’ve learned, while fighting the good fight on science on the internet for over 20 years, when someone says “I am totally in favor of XYZ,” they generally will follow up with how they really aren’t. Trump does the same.
Ironically, Kennedy was a strong critic of Trump, calling the President-elect, “dangerous and deceptive.” I guess when it comes to vaccines, politics does make some strange bedfellows.
But the story gets worse. Several tweets just hit my timeline that makes me physically ill:
https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/818897616222191617
JUST IN: Vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy says he accepted Trump's offer to chair panel on vaccine safety. https://t.co/WSgvsKG0s5 pic.twitter.com/JLaJFZNuJG
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) January 10, 2017
This is just incredible. Robert F Kennedy Jr chairing a panel on vaccine safety? Who is he going to put on this panel, Mr. Andrew Wakefield?
Outspoken vaccine critic Robert Kennedy Jr. has accepted a position within Donald Trump’s administration as chair of a panel on vaccine safety and scientific integrity — the clearest sign yet of the president-elect’s suspicions about vaccines.
The offer, which came in a Wednesday meeting between Trump and the scion of America’s most prominent Democratic family, is likely to concern scientists and public health experts who fear the incoming administration could give legitimacy to skeptics of childhood immunizations, despite a huge body of scientific research demonstrating that vaccines are safe.
Kennedy told reporters after the meeting,
President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policies and he has questions about it. His opinion doesn’t matter but the science does matter and we ought to be reading the science and we ought to be debating the science. And that everybody ought to be able to be assured that the vaccines that we have — he’s very pro-vaccine, as am I — but they’re as safe as they possibly can be.
Yes, Mr. Kennedy the science dos matter and you are on the absolute wrong side of science. Face it, you’re a science denier on the facts of vaccines. Moreover, science is not subject to debate – either the evidence is solid or not, and you don’t debate. You provide scientific evidence equal to, or better than, the science presented that supports my understanding of vaccines. Claiming that yourself, or Donald Trump, are “pro-vaccine” falls on deaf ears when it’s clear that you will use any lame conspiracy theory, bad science or outright lies to support your point of view about vaccines.
Robert F Kennedy Jr – you are an embarrassment to liberal ideals on science. You are an embarrassment to the legacies of your father and your uncles. You’re just an embarrassment.
Now this science denying ignoramus might chair a panel to look at vaccine safety. Maybe I should hope that Kennedy gets shamed into accepting the scientific facts. But my hopes are starting to be delusions.
Update 1
A Trump spokesperson put out this statement:
The President-elect enjoyed his discussion with Robert Kennedy Jr. on a range of issues and appreciates his thoughts and ideas. The President-elect is exploring the possibility of forming a commission on Autism, which affects so many families; however no decisions have been made at this time. The President-elect looks forward to continuing the discussion about all aspects of Autism with many groups and individuals.
So Trump may or may not set up this panel and may or may not appoint Kennedy to chair it.
Update 2
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told members of his environmental group late Wednesday that he expects to temporarily leave it to chair a vaccine safety commission he has been discussing with President-elect Donald Trump and his aides for more than a month.
So, RFK Jr has been discussing this panel for much longer than it appeared when this news first broke. And it kind of supports the notion that this will happen, causing unneeded confusion about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, which is beyond dispute. At least beyond dispute of that uninformed, unscientific group.
I am not alone at being appalled by this turn of events. Nearly every scientific, medical and skeptical writer has expressed either shock, alarm, humor, or crying. Maybe all four at once.
Kennedy no longer represents liberal democrats to me. He’s an unscientific traitor.
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