WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, said any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees seeking confirmation should refrain from attempts to discredit the polio vaccine. “keep away”.
“Efforts to undermine the public’s trust in proven remedies are not just uninformed – they are dangerous,” McConnell said in a statement Friday. “Anyone seeking Senate approval to serve in the new administration would do well to avoid even the appearance of association with such efforts.”
The 82-year-old lawmaker’s statement appeared to be aimed at Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after it was reported that one of his advisers filed a motion to revoke the approval of the polio vaccine in 2022 had A sign that Kennedy, who has long promoted the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, could face resistance in the soon-to-be Republican-controlled Senate.
“Mr. Kennedy believes that the polio vaccine should be available to the public and should be thoroughly and properly studied,” Katie Miller, Kennedy’s interim spokeswoman, said in response to questions.
The New York Times reported Friday that a lawyer who is helping Kennedy select candidates for health care positions has filed a petition to urge the administration to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine – which was introduced in the seen in most parts of the world as a way to contain the disease — and pause distribution of several other vaccines. The Washington Post also confirmed the petition. According to the Times, the AP has not independently verified the petition filed in 2022.
Vaccines have proven protected and effective in laboratory tests and in real-world employ to hundreds of millions of people over decades – considered one of the most effective public health interventions in history.
McConnell contracted polio at age 2 but survived, he said Friday, “due to the miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love.” He praised the “saving power” of the polio vaccine for the “millions who came after me.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also responded to the Times report on Friday. In a post on
He called on Kennedy to clarify his own position on the matter.
Trump nominated Kennedy last month and said he would work to protect Americans “from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and food additives.”
But his nomination was immediately met with concern from scientists and public health officials who fear Kennedy would roll back life-saving public health initiatives such as vaccines.
Kennedy has pushed other vaccine conspiracy theories, such as that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. Comments he later said were taken out of context. He has repeatedly brought up the Holocaust when discussing vaccines and public health regulations.
Kennedy said he plans to reshape the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency with far-reaching reach and a $1.3 trillion budget, if approved. He has suggested that the Food and Drug Administration is beholden to “big pharma,” and his anti-vaccine nonprofit has called on them to stop using COVID-19 vaccines.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, his nonprofit group Children’s Health Defense petitioned the FDA to halt employ of all COVID vaccines. The group has claimed that the FDA is beholden to “big pharma” because it gets much of its budget from industry fees and some employees who left the agency have moved to drugmakers.
Children’s Health Defense currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking actions to spread misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19. 19 vaccines, uncover. Kennedy bid farewell to the group when he announced his presidential candidacy, but is listed in the lawsuit as one of its lawyers.
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