Trump picks RFK Jr. , anti-vaccine activist, for Health and Human Services secretary

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 323 points – Trump picks RFK Jr. , anti-vaccine activist, for Health and Human Services secretary
nbcnews.com

Summary

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an outspoken anti-vaccine activist, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Known for promoting debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, Kennedy’s appointment has sparked concerns within federal health agencies, with some FDA staff reportedly considering resignations.

Kennedy, who previously ran for president before endorsing Trump, has hinted at plans to overhaul the FDA, ban fluoride in drinking water, and reduce ultra-processed foods.

His nomination marks a significant potential shift for U.S. public health policy.

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To all you who didn't vote because "Harris isn't good either": You chose this. You let this happen.

When kids start dying of Whooping Cough, I'm going to strongly encourage people to post their anger and direct it to not only Republican voters, but also to people who stayed home because "it doesn't matter."

Democrats were perfectly capable of enacting electoral reform in the blue states they control, allowing these people who felt unrepresented to be involved and engaged. Some of them might have picked the democrats as their 2nd pick.

Why did the democrats say no to these easy extra votes? Why did they say no to having multiple chances at defeating the republicans? Why did they prioritize restricting election access to 3rd parties over defeating the republicans?

I think if I was an american and I was a democrat, and trump was in for re election, I would vote democrat no matter what.

But now people can see that the difference between democrats and republicans is like choosing between "sleek shit" and "shitty shit". It's all shit, but packaged differently.

The US really needs a third option and it used to have one.

It's quite pathetic how so many of these stories have top comments that all blame voters for the decades of compound failures by the Democratic party.

You have it backwards my friend, voters cannot fail the party. It's the party's job to win voters, but instead, they shed 14 million voters over the last election.

Remind me, how many users are on Lemmy?

"Individuals have no responsibility to be informed or compassionate whatsoever. That's some corporate fuckheads' role"

Why do people keep on insisting on this dumbass bullshit?

So just so we're clear here, you acknowledge that it is "corporate fuckheads" who run the DNC, but insist they aren't to blame for losing 14m votes.

In fact, it's actually my fault, your neighbor's fault, and anyone of voting age who isn't employed by the DNC.

And when he dissolves elections, like he also said he would, who’s going to win you over then.

Again, the Democratic party lost this election, not me, or any other voter.

So while you identified a potential future problem, it feels like you've misdiagnosed who's to blame for that possibility.

The Dems put up a good fight. Biden needed to leave earlier. Harris could've had an actual answer to what she would've done differently. The reality is they were fighting a huge uphill battle. We've got an extremely ignorant and uninformed citizenry with little understanding of the functioning of government. I'm talking about Americans a proud and reactionary group of people. There was zero chance after picking Kamala that the Democratic party was going to pivot from their neo-liberal views and what movement they did was towards the center.

Now that they've lost so decisively maybe we'll see a window to move the party in a progressive direction. Personally I think the Dems need to get back to supporting labor unions. If we are going to "reindustrialize" this country because we are doing war with China then we should want strong labor organization. Get some progressives to run on policies that put people first instead of property and capital.

That would probably require getting money out of politics. In the meantime focus on continuing to improve the quality of life in blue states and blue cities. As far as the voters they didn't fail the party they failed the country. We are going to see a bunch of our fellow citizens lose more of their rights.

It's so cute that you think there will be a democratic party in four years. Trump has literally vowed to persecute political opponents. That alone should've been a non-starter to voting for him, even if you agree with everything else he says. Forget about the long history of corruption, proven in a court of law, that he will now get away with, scot-free.

So many downvotes for such an objectively true statement. It's not "we the party" it's "we the people" if dems didn't win that's objectively the parties fault for not winning us over.

RFK has said "there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine".

You voted for this, America.

Make smallpox great again!

And Polio, and Mumps, And Measles, and Rubella, and.... and.... and..

Don't forget one of the most effective vaccines of all time against a 99.9999% deadly disease, rabies.

Next time ebola breaks out, I half expect him to eat a live bat on TV to prove it doesn't exist and immediately become patient zero right here

But fellatioborne transmission means the president gets it. The president.

I don’t know how he thinks he’ll reduce ultra-processed foods but that’s probably not the worst. Other stuff is 🤮

In practice what it probably means is removing all the modern preservatives and added vitamins/minerals. Who’s excited to get goiter and pellagra?!

Doing that would also mean a return to traditional preservatives: salt and sugar. Because we don’t have enough of that in the American diet already.

Depends on what he means by "ultra-processed", but you can bet that it's probably not a reasonable criteria that he'll be using.

The man isn't rational, and doesn't base his conclusions on sound reasoning.

Note the call to lessen regulations around "raw milk, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine". That's pretty insane.

And I can almost be certain that what they'll do is eliminate funding for snap benefits and school lunches going to what they'll classify as "ultra processed foods", without adjusting funding to account for what they left behind being significantly more expensive. Some definitions of "ultra-processed" include things like "store bought bread", "frozen meals", "soup concentrate", "yoghurt" and "sausage".
Call me cynical, but I think if you apply the stricter work requirements for benefits they always want, while reducing the scope of the benefits to cover fewer things, and almost nothing helpful for the people with the severe time restrictions the work requirements can cause you'll end up seeing people use the benefits far less often, because they give less usable food for the money. Then they'll use that to justify reducing the size of the program even further.

We expect people making school lunches to make hundreds of meals that finish at the same time, to have the meal be nutritionally complete, tasty, and now also not use frozen or premade ingredients. We give them literally $1 for the ingredients for these meals, and maybe another $2 for operational overhead like labor costs and equipment.
Saying you can't use canned tomato sauce, peanut butter, pre-packaged bread or ground meats is basically just cutting funding for feeding children under the guise of not paying for a scary sounding classification of food.

Has Trump rehired anyone from his previous administration? I know he fired a shit ton of them but I know a few managed to stay on.

Because if this is all new people, it's very telling and I have a feeling it means it's going to be more dangerous and not less.

I feel like the only people who can do anything powerful would be the front line government workers and contractors. If they all quit their jobs en masse on January 20th, it might prevent the new administration from doing even more dangerous shit.

Lol the whole plan is to fire any government worker that doesn't step into line and replace them with party loyalists.

Every government worker that objects to Trump's Agenda quitting would help that agenda. There's no shortage of cronies willing to do any job for the sake of "Making America Great Again". And it's not like he needs qualified people in these positions. Most of the government agencies, he wants to run into the ground. Easier to get rid of regulations or to privatize that way.

Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff, I believe. She didn't serve in an office before, but was high-level in his campaign in 2016, 2020, and 2024, so she's around for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susie_Wiles

Didn't just show up with Trump, has done Republican campaigns for a long time.

Y'all still gonna trust vaccines when the next pandemic hits? Cuz I aint trusting these RFK worm-infested vaccines.

Mask your biohazard self if you’re not getting vaccinated for the next 4 years, thanks.

Or blue states can start manufacturing their own vaccines. fuck them red states lol, they brought this upon themselves.

I don’t know what about that comment signaled to you that I’d be okay with my family members that live in a red state dying because RFK fucked with vaccines, but I’m not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Where you live is a location, not an ideology.

This administration is turning out to be one of the most experienced in history. I have extremely high hopes for these picks, the combined knowledge is unheard of, nobody could imagine all of these top individuals.

I know there’s an /s in there that you forgot. Please say that you forgot it…

I, for one, welcome our new kakistocratic overlords.

i think i remember in the debates, maybe it was JaDonald Vance, saying "it is either we choose to rely in science people, or rely on wisdom and common sense Trump has".

this is that wisdom.

What on Earth is the NIH thinking right now?

I mean, what if an moon landing skeptic took over NASA? It's like that. They literally produce this mountain of evidence and organize this stuff, and... yeah.

I feel like these articles blowing up now is just a way to make people less interested when it eventually has to pass the Senate... manufacturing consent and all that

Ban floride testing of the water, there's no treatment used in mass water to remove all natural occurring floride.