{"id":16619,"date":"2024-11-16T02:21:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T03:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16619"},"modified":"2024-11-16T03:27:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T03:27:04","slug":"kennedys-views-mix-mistrust-of-business-with-unfounded-health-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16619","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy\u2019s Views Mix Mistrust of Business With Unfounded Health Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Seven years after Americans celebrated the licensing of Jonas Salk\u2019s polio vaccine, President John F. Kennedy called on Congress to finance a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out what he called the \u201cancient enemies of our children\u201d: infectious disease.<\/p>\n

Now Kennedy\u2019s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the nation\u2019s chief critic of vaccines \u2014 a public health intervention that has saved millions of lives \u2014 and President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick to become the next secretary of health and human services. Mr. Kennedy calls himself a vaccine safety activist. The press calls him a vaccine skeptic. His detractors call him an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.<\/p>\n

Whatever one calls him, Mr. Kennedy is a polarizing choice whose views on certain public health matters beyond vaccination are far outside the mainstream. He opposes fluoride in water. He favors raw milk, which the Food and Drug Administration deems risky. And he has promoted unproven therapies like hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. His own relatives called his presidential bid \u201cdangerous for our country<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there is a through line to Mr. Kennedy\u2019s thinking, it appears to be a deep mistrust of corporate influence on health and medicine. In some cases, that has led him to support positions that are also embraced by public health professionals, including his push to get ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to<\/a> obesity, off grocery store shelves. His disdain for profit-seeking pharmaceutical manufacturers and food companies drew applause on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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People close to him say his commitment to \u201cmake America healthy again\u201d is heartfelt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is his life\u2019s mission,\u201d said Brian Festa, a founder of We the Patriots U.S.A., a \u201cmedical freedom\u201d group<\/a> that has pushed back on vaccine mandates, who said he has known Mr. Kennedy for years.<\/p>\n

But like Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy also has a tendency to float wild theories based on scanty evidence. And he has hinted at taking actions, like prosecuting leading medical journals, that have unnerved the medical community. On Friday, many leading public health experts reacted to his nomination with alarm.<\/p>\n

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Seven years after Americans celebrated the licensing of Jonas Salk\u2019s polio vaccine, President John F. Kennedy called on Congress to finance a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out what he called the \u201cancient enemies of our children\u201d: infectious disease.Now Kennedy\u2019s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the nation\u2019s chief critic of vaccines \u2014 a public health intervention that has saved millions of lives \u2014 and President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick to become the next secretary of health and human services. Mr. Kennedy calls himself a vaccine safety activist. The press calls him a vaccine skeptic. His detractors call him an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.Whatever one calls him, Mr. Kennedy is a polarizing choice whose views on certain public health matters beyond vaccination are far outside the mainstream. He opposes fluoride in water. He favors raw milk, which the Food and Drug Administration deems risky. And he has promoted unproven therapies like hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. His own relatives called his presidential bid \u201cdangerous for our country.\u201dIf there is a through line to Mr. Kennedy\u2019s thinking, it appears to be a deep mistrust of corporate influence on health and medicine. In some cases, that has led him to support positions that are also embraced by public health professionals, including his push to get ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to obesity, off grocery store shelves. His disdain for profit-seeking pharmaceutical manufacturers and food companies drew applause on the campaign trail.People close to him say his commitment to \u201cmake America healthy again\u201d is heartfelt.\u201cThis is his life\u2019s mission,\u201d said Brian Festa, a founder of We the Patriots U.S.A., a \u201cmedical freedom\u201d group that has pushed back on vaccine mandates, who said he has known Mr. Kennedy for years.But like Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy also has a tendency to float wild theories based on scanty evidence. And he has hinted at taking actions, like prosecuting leading medical journals, that have unnerved the medical community. On Friday, many leading public health experts reacted to his nomination with alarm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16621,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16622,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16619\/revisions\/16622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}