‘Wild and Dangerous’: Review of Trump Interview on Vaccines

People are watching President-elect Donald Trump closely to figure out where he intends to take the country with respect to immigration, environmental protections, and sweeping changes in approaches to public health. The healthcare worries go well beyond plans for universal coverage through the ACA, and right down to possible treatments available and to whom. Potential Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a notorious vaccine skeptic, along with many other controversial and possibly dangerous alternative approaches to healthcare. The coming changes are so critical that they were quickly taken up during a CNN interview (Below) covering the “Time Magazine” article interview for Trump’s Person of the Year” award.

CNN’s Kate Bolduan and Steve Contorno thoroughly dug through the possible dangers RFK Jr. brings to the job, as referenced in the interview. It should be noted that these terrifying issues must be addressed quickly because there are other areas where RFK Jr. has expressed interest in fixing some concerning problems. It is wholly legitimate to be concerned about harmful food additives and preservatives. New farming and cooking oils are absolutely something that could help improve overall health. Finally, there is no doubt that the pharmaceutical industry is about as corrupt as any and should be razed to the ceiling for abuses in price gouging Americans.

There is also the obvious benefit of RFK Jr. believing in universal healthcare. But none of those issues matter to a child who dies at a young age due to a preventable disease for which he or she could’ve been safely vaccinated.

And that was the subject taken on by the interview. The transcript is discussed here and the video is below:

Contorno “He [] was asked about vaccinations… and whether or not Trump believes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should go through with some of his proposals on eliminating vaccines, and he was asked if RFK Jr. moves to end childhood vaccination programs, would you sign off on that. 

“Trump said, ‘We’re going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there’s something causing it.'”

Timeout. It is true that autism rates are way too high and at all-time levels. It is just as true that as little as 50 years ago no one even knew how to recognize or classify the spectrum. It is impossible to know how many kids (And grown-ups) suffered from autism but labeled as “slow” or challenged. Whether anyone “believed it possible” is kind of neither here nor there. Personal beliefs don’t move scientific fact.

Additionally yes – there is absolutely something causing it. Just… no one knows what it might be. But not a single study has shown that Autism has anything to do with vaccines. Yes, we need to figure out the cause, absolutely. But if one comes into it with a preconceived (And wrong) idea as to the cause, and has a personal belief that the cause is known – there is little point in even studying it. Back to the interview:

Bolduan: “Bobby, who listened to Andrew Wakefield, the doctor, non-doctor who came up with this damaging theory, faked a study, had to have it retracted, I believe lost his license then, and had created havoc in its wake. There is no link between vaccines and autism, but he’s still saying that it’s a possibility.”

“That is wild and dangerous. If what he does on vaccines – who cares what you say about it, as we have seen – is damaging enough.”

One point about vaccinations and the push for natural cures, or “letting the immune system develop to handle it” is that people make such statements from the relative comfort of herd immunity, a society in which people no longer see kids with polio, smallpox, mumps or measles walking around. Yes, people used to rely on a rough and tough immune system for natural protection, along with natural treatments and remedies… unfortunately, kids used to die all naturally.

It can be even more controversial. Even if – IF – there was a tenuous link between vaccinations and autism, it is almost surely also true that the benefits from immunizations against childhood diseases would vastly outweigh the very real concern about autism or landing anywhere on the spectrum. We don’t know this to be the case – there is no evidence – but it is possible that in weighing the two, people would easily choose immunizations over risk of ever-present disease enveloping their small town.

What is the old saying, “First world problems” – like you can’t get the dry cleaning after six? The same is applied to blasting vaccinations and medical developments from the safety of nearly perfect public health in which old terrifying childhood diseases are now no longer in our vocabulary. Ask your teen if she/he has ever heard of mumps, never mind having it. It is easy to find smaller concerns in the solution than address the explosive problems if vaccines were pulled off the market.

Having said such – if the administration funds studies that find a new way to deliver the vaccine in a newly developed model, one that is proven to be as effective as the old ones, then, of course, replace them and throw out the old. We are waiting in relative safety but open.

The danger in losing herd immunity is such that “75 Nobel laureates have already come out publicly and called on the U.S. Senate to reject Kennedy’s nomination as secretary of health and human services due to his vaccine skepticism.”

Science can be tough stuff and developments come in fits and starts – but it is also subject to regression when the benefit is so complete that everyone forgets the value.

You never notice the electricity surrounding you until it’s gone in a storm – you quickly figure out that literally everything you have was plugged in. It would be the similar if vaccines were suddenly pulled over baseless panic.

There would inevitably be a sudden and massive polio or measles outbreak. Out of nowhere, concerns about tenuous vaccine side effects would disappear as far more kids were seen in wheelchairs, walkers, deformed limbs or worse – dead, due to entirely preventable diseases. There would be a clamor to go back to vaccines – it would, of course, be way too late for some.

We don’t yet know what RFK Jr. has planned, or how far Donald Trump will go as president signing such orders. There are areas that could – if following scientific studies – do a lot of good with respect to the pharmaceutical industry and foods. But it would sure send things back to the dark ages if they pulled back from modern vaccinations that had previously been a childhood rite, replacing the rite of passage of dodging such diseases.

Like many other issues, we are in a wait and see mode. But it sure behooves one to listen to the signal noise prior to hearing shocking developments down the road.

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on “X” at @JasonMiciak, and now on Bluesky (follow me)

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