Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American‘s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s start the week by capturing up on the most recent science news.
We’ve got a short upgrade from Tanya Lewis, a senior editor covering health and medication at Scientific AmericanShe’s here to unload the news that President-elect Donald Trump prepares to put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. What follows is a quick discussion Tanya and I taped a couple days back.
Tanya, what is RFK, Jr.’s background in regard to health?
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Tanya Lewis: RFK, Jr., is an ecological legal representative by training, however he has no medical background, and he has really strong anti-vaccine views. He’s argued that vaccines trigger autism– which is, naturally, unmasked.
He’s likewise made great deals of incorrect and overstated claims about the threats of water fluoridation. He’s argued for unverified and possibly unsafe treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID and chelation, which is an approach of getting rid of heavy metals from the body for autism and, naturally, it does not work for that.
He likewise wishes to end what he calls the [Food and Drug Administration’s]quote, “war on public health,” that includes guideline of raw milk and some unverified stem cell treatments. He likewise wishes to stop the, quote, “revolving door” in between market and federal government and control ultra-processed foods, although it’s not truly clear how he would really do those things.
Feltman: And so what does it really suggest that he’s been chosen into this function?
Lewis: I believe his election recommends that the Trump administration has really little regard for recognized medical science. His views on vaccines and fluoride simply truly break the agreement of the majority of public health professionals and years of research study on their security and effectiveness.
And it’s not yet clear that he will even be validated by the Senate, so he might not even have a possibility to execute this program.
Feltman: Assuming that, you understand, he does get to enter this function, what sort of power would he really have?
Lewis: So as head of HHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, he will supervise of the FDA, the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]the [National Institutes of Health] and practically all other health departments, so he would have massive power to fire individuals, to work with individuals and absolutely reorganize these firms. He might likewise fill FDA and CDC advisory panels with vaccine doubters, which would be, clearly, most likely a bad thing due to the fact that these companies are expected to be charged with safeguarding individuals’s health and vaccines are a substantial part of that.