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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s health agency, has formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to revoke authorization of ‘all the Covid vaccines during the deadly season of the pandemic while there are still thousands of Americans. die every week.
Mr. filed a petition with the FDA. Kennedy in May 2021 demanded that officials revoke the authorization to carry out the shots and not approve the Covid vaccine in the future.
Just six months earlier Mr Trump had declared the Covid vaccine a miracle. By the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults had gotten the shot. Schools are open again and churches are full.
Estimates have begun to show that the rapid delivery of the Covid vaccine has already saved about 140,000 lives in the United States.
The petition was filed on behalf of a non-profit organization founded by Mr. Kennedy and led by, Protecting Children’s Health. He said that the risks of the vaccine outweighed the benefits and that the vaccine is not needed because there are good treatments, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which were previously thought to be ineffective against the virus.
The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was on the brink of public treatment at the time, and the agency denied it within months. Public health experts say the deployment is shocking.
John Moore, a professor of immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, called Mr. Kennedy’s request to the FDA an “error of judgment.” Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, compared Mr. Kennedy’s ability to lead the federal health agency to “laying flat ground for NASA. “
Dr. Robert Califf, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, described Mr Kennedy’s efforts to stop the use of the Covid vaccine as a “colossal mistake”.
A spokesman for the transition, Mr. Kennedy, did not respond to a request for comment, but said recently that he does not want to withdraw vaccines.
Asked in November by NBC reporters about his general opposition to the Covid vaccine – and whether he was blocking authorization – Mr Kennedy said he was concerned that the vaccine did not prevent the transmission of the virus.
“I wouldn’t have stopped it directly,” he said. “I’m going to make sure we have the best science, and no effort was made at the time.”
Mr Kennedy’s initial opposition to the Covid vaccine shocked public health experts, many of whom say he should be barred from overseeing health agencies with licensing powers. to monitor and allocate funding for millions of vaccines each year.
They are also concerned about how they could carry bird flu pandemics, which may require the rapid deployment of vaccines.
As Mr. Kennedy prepares for his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee, he and his allies insist that he is not against vaccines.
In fact, in mid-2023, he told the House panel that he had taken all the vaccines he recommended – except the Covid vaccine.
At his confirmation hearing, he is likely to face scrutiny over his sweeping claims about vaccines, including the death the polio vaccine saved.
Mr. Trump has moved in recent weeks to defend Kennedy after The New York Times reported that one of Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers had previously asked the FDA to revoke the approval. or stop distribution of multiple polio vaccines due to safety concerns.
“I think he’s going to be less aggressive than you think,” Mr. Trump said last month.
After the Times report, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kennedy expressed their support for the polio vaccine.
If confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy will oversee the $8 billion in funding for the Vaccine Program for of Children and will have the power to appoint new members to a panel that makes valid vaccine recommendations. state.
At the time Mr. Kennedy was against the Covid vaccine, some of his objections touched on more concerns about its rapid development. Emergency use authorization — a preliminary form of approval — for vaccination is not common. Others have argued that a public health emergency led to a more rapid deployment.
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health, said it’s fair to debate whether the Covid vaccine should have been subjected to further study.
But he strongly disagreed with Mr Kennedy’s views, saying “the idea that at the start of 2021 you can say people over 65 don’t need a Covid vaccine – that’s nuts just.”
Vaccines have rare side effects, and there have been cases of injuries from Covid shots. Officials are weighing the potential cost of saving lives. Estimates released as early as 2024 found that the Covid vaccine and mitigation measures saved about 800,000 lives in the United States.
Another study found that in late 2021 and 2022, the rate of death from Covid among unvaccinated people was 14 times higher than the rate among those who received a booster shot of Covid. The researchers also estimated that from May 2021 to September 2022, more than 230,000 deaths could have been prevented among people who first rejected the Covid virus.
Since the beginning of the campaign against the Covid vaccine, Mr Kennedy’s view that the Covid vaccine is dangerous has put him at odds with Mr Trump, whose Operation Warp Speed his political victories. And Mr. Kennedy launched a concerted anti-vaccination campaign.
Mr. Kennedy told Louisiana lawmakers in late 2021 that the Covid vaccine is “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
He has remained a plaintiff in a lawsuit against President Biden and others, challenging efforts by government officials to limit his ability to advise on social media that the Covid vaccine is unsafe.
In January 2021, Mr Kennedy suggested on Facebook that the death of baseball player Hank Aaron, 86, was linked to the Covid vaccine he received 17 days earlier. It’s “part of a worrying wave of deaths” after the Covid vaccine, he said. A doctor who administered vaccinations along with Mr. Aaron and the county medical examiner denied the claims.
In May, when Mr. Kennedy asked the FDA to “immediately remove the Covid vaccine from the market,” he joined Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Children’s Health and a physician in Maine.
His medical license was initially suspended due to an emergency in early 2022 for giving ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to patients with severe Covid-19, including of people infected with the virus, according to Maine medical examiner’s office records.
He later sued the office, saying it retaliated against him for exercising his right to free speech. The case is still pending.
In 2022, Mr. Kennedy and others filed a lawsuit against the FDA on behalf of Child Health Protection and Parents who said they were concerned that their children would be given the Covid vaccine unless they know or accept. The amended lawsuit, filed in July 2022, sought a court order seeking the agency’s review of approvals for Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid vaccines for children.
The Texas Supreme Court dismissed the case in early 2024, agreeing with a lower court that the plaintiffs did not experience “concrete or imminent” harm. In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.
Mr. Kennedy has also sent a letter to the FDA threatening legal action if it is allowed to vaccinate children.
Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid vaccines for infants and children 6 months to 11 years old are still being used under emergency authorization, said an FDA spokesperson for Pfizer and Moderna. for Moderna that the company seeks full recognition for all age groups.
Mr. Kennedy said in the censorship case that senior officials in the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence him, especially during the summer of 2021. At that time, the rate of the vaccine. Unvaccinated people started dying at a higher rate. Some died young; Loved ones said they were confused by the conflicting messages on social media – or regretted not getting the vaccine.
The filing in the lawsuit outlines a brief summer meeting with Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary at the time, and Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, has criticized social media companies for allowing the spread of false information that affects people. against vaccination.
“And we can’t wait any longer to take drastic action because people are losing their lives,” said Dr. Murthy on 15 July 2021.
Mr. Biden expressed anger the next day, telling reporters that social media companies hosting vaccine misinformation were “murdering people.”
In legal filings, Mr. Kennedy said he had been named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by a prominent advocacy group — and that he was among those targeted by the White House. Disclosures in the lawsuit show that White House officials relied on social media companies to remove false information.
Within a month, a senior Facebook executive reported to Dr. Murthy that he removed several pages or groups, including Mr. Kennedy, according to records.
The Supreme Court rejected a related case last summer, and the appeals court rejected Mr. Kennedy’s case late last year. Lawyers representing Mr. Kennedy and others are still working to secure depositions for about 30 people, mostly Biden administration officials.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Dylan Freedman contributed reporting.
