Dr. Robert Redfield, who served as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during President Donald Trump’s first term, called for more vaccine research in his address at a health care event hosted by Politico on Feb. 19.
“Let’s get that systematically reviewed by the experts.”
Long before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president, then underwent a rigorous Senate confirmation process to become secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), his name has been synonymous with the topic of vaccines. That trend has continued in his first week leading the nation’s largest health department.
Fighting chronic disease, improving children’s health, and addressing corporate influence on government agencies were vital parts of Kennedy’s campaign platform.
Redfield and Del Bigtree, founder of the Informed Consent Action Network, discussed vaccine science and Kennedy’s plans on the subject at the event.
For years, critics have called Kennedy an “anti-vaxxer,” a claim he has denied. During his presidential campaign and the Senate confirmation process, he repeatedly said he is an advocate for vaccine safety, informed consent, and “gold standard science” behind vaccine efficacy studies.
Bigtree, who also hosts the online talk show “The HighWire,” served as Kennedy’s communications director during the candidate’s presidential campaign and is now CEO of the Make America Healthy Again PAC.
On Feb. 19, Bigtree said Kennedy should bring aboard scientists who want to find out the connection between vaccines and autism. Previous studies contending no link between vaccines and autism were conducted by scientists who sought to discover that result, he said.
“Get scientists who say, ‘I think I can prove vaccines do cause autism,’” Bigtree said. “If they can’t pull that off, now you have a true safety profile.”
Kennedy has said for years that autism is likely tied to childhood vaccines.
Trump said in December that he would give Kennedy the freedom to investigate the potential link between vaccines and autism if the latter became HHS secretary.
As HHS secretary, Kennedy heads a department that manages 13 agencies, including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the NIH.
Kennedy has promised significant changes throughout the department. Immediately after he was sworn in on Feb. 13, he was tasked by Trump to lead a commission primarily focused on childhood health.
It is tasked to explore possible causes of such diseases, including “the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism.”
When Redfield was asked about the Trump administration’s decision last week to fire thousands of HHS employees, he responded that the agency should be reformed.
“I don’t know what the ultimate consequences are going to be—whether it’s going to be good or not good—but I do think, though, that we could all try to focus this time to transform our health system and our health agencies so that they’re focused on health,” Redfield said.
He said that the CDC has departed from its primary mission as a public health response agency and has transformed into an academic institution.
Bigtree reiterated Kennedy’s view that government health agencies are captured by corporations. Regulatory agencies such as the CDC, FDA, and NIH are servants of “Big Ag, Big Food, and Big Pharma,” he said.
“Finally we have someone at the head of HHS not owned by these corporations,” Bigtree said. “I think he’s looking for the right type of people.”
Bigtree said that Kennedy should sit down with staff members and ask them “What have you done over the last four years?”
“If they’re not producing real results and good science, maybe there’s a better job for them somewhere else,” Bigtree said.
