Sanjay always great to see you um so this can't come as a shock in the sense that this is exactly what Donald Trump campaigned on nonetheless I don't think many Americans actually uh came to terms with what this could mean for their day-to-day medical needs and their lives in general um so walk us through your reaction to this announcement and what you're hearing from your colleagues in the medical community yeah I think the the reactions have been pretty pretty um strong you know uh from all Corners really and perhaps not surprising because it's so difficult
to disentangle anything from politics nowadays including Public Health B it sort of has broken mostly along partisan lines so support from Republicans not as much support from Democrats people um certain Republicans saying this is a very bold courageous move um some Democrats saying this is dangerous and disturbing there have been some crossovers you know the Democratic governor of Colorado has supported uh this nomination of our K Jr for this post uh former vice president Mike Pence has said um he's got some significant concerns about this primarily over um RFK Jr's position on abortion um you
know RFK Jr was a Democrat up until recently he was an environmental lawyer those are the things he was most known for in addition to his stance on vaccines and I think that's what's driving a lot of this I think you know with regard to the medical community specifically B it's it's not a monolithic Comm Community you're going to have you know disperate points of view although they they have been pretty lockstep in terms of their overall concerns specifically with regard to vaccines there have been other things that I think they're more supportive of U
the concerns about food supply for example the concerns about toxins in the food supply the fact that we spend four and a half trillion dollars on Health Care in the United States and have some of the worst outcomes in the developed world so those are things that I think people have recognized for a long time uh are are a real concern and the idea that maybe things could be done about that um you know I think that has much more support but the vaccine issue is a flash point and for many people it's also a
metaphor for I think how RFK approaches science in general he has these beliefs that don't seem to be rooted in science and he seems to have a disdain at time for the scientists who who talk about these things and that's I think that's their primary concern yes especially because he himself is not a scientist uh so um he doesn't come with the years of education and the field work and expertise that that they do uh he claims that he has never been antivaccine but he spread false claims about vaccines for years over social media as
you know in the past he said vaccines had caused a holocaust he's he's made the comparisons and the links obviously between Autism um and I wonder if you could just set the record record straight for us for Americans who are now worried will I be able to take my kids in for their annual vaccine shots will will a newborn be receiving the vaccines that they've been accustomed to for for so many decades now um what if anything changes with someone like him at the helm of such a large and influential organization like the HHS well
bi I think the most honest answer is I I don't know I don't think anybody knows because his stance seemingly his language changes sometimes not just day-to-day but even within the same interview as you just point out he says he's not antiva but says the the vaccines have caused a sort of Holocaust um he has said that he would not take away people's vaccines but also tells a story of walking up to a mother with a young child while he's out on a hike and and making sure to convey to that Mom that their their
child should not be vaccinated so I I don't know what that translates to ultimately and look I I think you know just be a little bit optimistic I think it's very hard to to take away vaccines or make them unavailable for people and pretty clearly they've had a significant beneficial impact I mean some of these studies again are studies that he will see but if you look at for example children who are vaccinated over the last 30 years from 1994 to 2023 um you you you have these projections in terms of the impact um 500
million illnesses prevented 32 million hospitalizations prevented a million deaths prevented and this is data that I'm sure he has seen and will certainly be presented again if he is in a position of power at HHS so I you know I think some of that data is hard to argue with the vaccines and autism issue bana I think again is is the real flash point and as you probably know I mean this started in the late 90s with a paper that was subsequently retracted but it was a paper of 12 children who developed autism who had
also had the MMR vaccine and the and the authors of the paper the author Andrew Wakefield made this cause and effect sort of relationship between the vaccines and autism again the paper was subsequently retracted uh it was found that cause and effect relationship was not found to hold up and it inspired lots of studies after that and big studies following hundreds of thousands of children uh who some who have been vaccinated some who've not been vaccinated and basically saying okay let's follow these children for 15 years and see what happens and what they found was
that there was no relationship between the vaccines and autism [Music] [Music]
