Trump’s favourite for ‘health czar’ doesn’t believe in vaccines. Children could be at risk
American schools could start withdrawing child vaccination campaigns if Robert F Kennedy Jr is handed a lead health role in the new Trump administration, a US medic has warned.
Dr LaShyra Nolen, resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the first Black woman to serve as student president of Harvard Medical School, said parents were right to fear for the safety of their children following the US election.
Donald Trump has promised RFK Jnr, a prominent anti-vaxxer, a key role in his administration in charge of public health initiatives. Kennedy, who ran for president as an independent this year before he dropped his bid and endorsed Trump, has long spread falsehoods about vaccines and other public health matters.
He has frequently claimed that childhood vaccines are linked to autism, even though studies have debunked that theory for decades.
When asked during the presidential campaign trail whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Mr Kennedy and others about the issue. The president-elect described Mr Kennedy, 70, as “a very talented guy and has strong views” but his comments sparked a backlash among scientists.
“RFK Jnr will have a lot of negative influence,” said Dr Nolen. “He’s saying he wants to remove fluoride from water despite the fact that is a proven public health intervention, one of the top 10 greatest to reduce cavities in children because of the way it strengthens enamel. He also wants to ‘look into’ the safety of vaccines and we know for some time he is someone who has been someone described as an anti-vaxxer. We have extensive evidence proving that vaccines are indeed safe.
“The fact that we’re starting to see things like polio and whooping cough coming back, diseases which we had pretty much eradicated, is very frightening to me.”
Kennedy has said Trump and his team had not decided yet what his job in the new administration would be, but he did not rule out secretary of health and human services and also floated the idea of being a “White House health czar”.
Asked in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday whether there are specific vaccines that he would remove from the market, Kennedy has rejected the idea that he’s “anti-vaccine” despite his false or unproven claims about them — and his involvement with Children’s Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine group. He reiterated that he would not “take away anybody’s vaccines”.
However, Dr Nolen, 28, and other medics are fearful of the effects a second Trump administration will have on public health, given what was said on the campaign trail.
“If you already have someone who doesn’t believe in science, evidence and truth and is in charge of the health of the United States… what does that mean for the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]? For the National Institutes of Health? What type of research are we going to produce? What type of grants are we going to give scientists?
“And RFK Jnr is taking about removing the Food and Drug Administration which is our federal body that looks at the safety of drugs that are put onto the market.”
Asked if a worst case scenario involves schools starting to withdraw children’s vaccination campaigns, Dr Nolen said: “Yeah. Unfortunately those campaigns have already started, especially at the peak of Covid where parents were saying they didn’t want to give their children this vaccine.
“These historical connections that had been debunked, kids developing mental illnesses or disorders, came back. So we’re already at that place. The difference now would be you have someone at the top [RFK Jnr] pushing those fears and funding those fears. I would be very frightened to see that. “
Dr Nolen is concerned that instead of organisations such as We Got Us, a community-centred approach to increasing vaccine access for minority groups which she founded during the pandemic, funding could be diverted to organisations spreading anti-vaccine information.
“That will impact public health. There’s no longer going to be the centring of evidence-based facts or truth in the general discourse,” she said. “Trump is someone who suggested people use bleach at one point during the pandemic to help stave off Covid-19. The things that the highest levels of the administration were coming out with are troubling and that’s something I worry about quite a bit again now.
“And we can already see some figures Trump is pointing to as potentially becoming part of his Cabinet are sharing those views that are just not true – and truth and evidence is the critical part of public health.”
“I remain hopeful in my belief in people and communities and the ways we’ll be able to organise and protect children when it comes to these things, but it’s hard to really anticipate what direction anything is going to go with this administration.”
Dr Nolen also said she believes another Trump administration will continue to “roll back” on women’s reproductive health and equality policies she says are designed to address structural racism in healthcare.
In 2022, following Trump’s appointment of more conservative justices during his tenure, America’s top court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling which had guaranteed women the right to an abortion up until the point of foetal viability, which is about 24 weeks. Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more bar abortion in most cases after about six weeks of pregnancy – often before women realise they are pregnant.
It means that about 22 million women of reproductive age live in a state that has banned abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, representing about a third of the total childbearing population.
“Those who disproportionally get abortions in the US tend to be Black, Latino or indigenous,” Dr Nolen said. “That’s partly because these groups tend not to have access to contraception or communities have traditionally been marginalised when it comes to contraceptive options. If you combine the lack of access with this dignified mistrust they have of the medical system, naturally those individuals will have more abortions.
“On top of that, they tend to live in states that have the strictest abortion laws. So, I think these individuals are going to have a greater lack of access to abortion care, while those who are wealthier will able to leave those states and travel to places where they can get access to abortions.
“If the abortion laws continue to be up to individual states, as Trump has said, then we will continue to see these wide disparities.”
In 2021, Josseli Barnica died after being told it would be a “crime” to intervene in her miscarriage at a Texas hospital. She is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care having told her husband that the medical team said it could not act until the foetal heartbeat stopped.
Candi Miller died in 2022 after ordering abortion pills online. Her family said she did not visit a doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.” Maternal health experts deemed her death preventable and blamed Georgia’s abortion ban.
Dr Nolen said: “We can see the rolling back of issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or any types of initiatives geared towards patients who have been historically marginalised, especially racially.
“I imagine a lot of those programmes are going to be targeted because there’s a lack of belief of their importance.”
Pointing out that some 27 million Americans still uninsured – despite the introduction in 2010 of the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama – Dr Nolen said the United States’s top three priorities should focus on extending universal healthcare, addressing socio-political determinants of health, and improving medical education.
She said the election result will make her work as ambassador for One Young World – a 19,000+ strong community of young founders, activists, and entrepreneurs – will not have an effect on their ability to campaign for its common goal to resolve some of the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate change and violent extremism to sexual violence and poverty.
“If anything, it’s going to light a fire under us and it’s going to help us reaffirm our commitment to our collective vision of change,” she said.
“When things are good you can get a bit complacent… because of the rise of the Right and Conservatism across the world, we’re going to have come together more than ever, but I feel this generation is prepared to do that. I don’t feel this Trump Presidency will prevent that commitment.”
