Donald Trump is pushing the longtime vaccine opponent and current health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to be more aggressive on cutting vaccines in the US, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
Trump has a long record of anti-vaccine statements, but the White House recently put a hold on vaccine changes after polling indicated they were a losing issue in the midterm elections.
Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, recently slashed the routine childhood immunization schedule in an unprecedented move.
Trump reportedly asked Kennedy at his northern Virginia golf course in May if the health secretary had the “yips”, according to the Journal.
Trump wasn’t talking about a sudden inability to make putts. Kennedy wasn’t making enough cuts to the US vaccination schedule, Trump reportedly said.
The US president hopes to make “alleviating autism” a component of his legacy, the Journal reported – and he has taken issue with Kennedy’s less aggressive changes to vaccination recommendations in recent months.
“Donald Trump has been anti-vaccine at least since 2015,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an infectious diseases physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At the Republican primary debate that year, Trump said that autism had gotten “totally out of control” and vaccines should be in “smaller doses over a longer period of time”.
He may be anti vaccine, but he got multiple doses of COVID vaccines. Trump invited Andrew Wakefield to his first inauguration.
Be a shame if he died of flu or meningitis this fall. Real shame.
Pneumonia would be absolutely terrible too, did you know there’s a one and done vaccine for that?
I feel more people should know this information, but you’d be surprised how many have no clue.
Why would anyone be against preventative care and medicine? Hmm?