Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaxxer allies are pulling for him to destroy the covid-19 shots once and for all. A purported close ally of the health secretary has claimed that Kennedy and President Donald Trump are preparing to imminently shelve the mRNA covid-19 vaccines.
British cardiologist and RFK Jr. advisor Aseem Malhotra was interviewed by the Daily Beast for an article published Monday morning. In it, Malhotra states that the Trump administration will attempt to pull the mRNA-based vaccines from the U.S. market “within months.” Though the likelihood of such a decision is unclear, it’s perhaps an indication of just how confident the antivaccination movement has become in the wake of Kennedy’s ascension to leading the country’s public health system.
As the Daily Beast reports:
[Malhotra] told the Beast that many of those closest to RFK Jr. have told him they “cannot understand” why the vaccine continues to be prescribed, and that a decision to remove the vaccine from the U.S. market pending further research will come “within months,” even if it is likely to cause “fear of chaos” and bring with it major legal ramifications.
A history of vaccine skepticism
Though initially supportive of the covid-19 vaccines, Malhotra has since campaigned against their use, often by citing fatally flawed data. He’s repeatedly argued that the vaccines were more dangerous than the virus itself, substantially contributing to heart attacks and other cardiac events—claims refuted widely by other experts, including the British Heart Foundation. Though all vaccines and drugs carry their risks, the vast majority of studies have found that the overall benefits of covid-19 vaccination far outweigh the potential harms.
Malhotra’s views have enjoyed plenty of support from the antivaccination movement, including Children’s Health Defense, the organization founded and once led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Malhotra, a close external ally to RFK Jr., is also a leading adviser to the lobbying group Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Action, according to the Daily Beast. He also helped fundraise for Kennedy’s failed presidential campaign last year.
Will the covid-19 shots go away?
At the same time, Malhotra’s claims about the future of covid-19 vaccines shouldn’t be seen as a guarantee.
For starters, there’s nothing new about the fact that antivaxxers would love to see the covid-19 vaccines disappear for good. And even Malhotra doesn’t seem to be sure about how exactly the Trump administration would go about removing them from the market.
At one point, for instance, he told the Daily Beast that the effort could happen “in a number of stages, including learning more about the data.” He added that, “But given the increased talk of vaccine injuries in the past few weeks among the administration, it could also come with one clean decision.”
Later in the article, he expressed optimism that once he’s able to meet Trump during a planned visit in September, he will “get it, because it’s in his interest to.” Leaving aside Trump’s reportedly very short attention span, Malhotra’s wording suggests Trump isn’t already on board with dumping the covid-19 vaccines and would have to be convinced to do so.
For the time being, the White House appears to be noncommittal to the idea.
“The Administration is relying on Gold Standard Science and is committed to radical transparency to make decisions that affect all Americans,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Beast. “Unless announced by the Administration, however, any discussion about HHS policy should be dismissed as baseless speculation.”
A spokesperson for HHS told Gizmodo that the agency “does not comment on potential or future policy decisions.”
None of this is to say that vaccines aren’t in RFK Jr.’s crosshairs, however. Since taking over HHS, Kennedy has purged the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, pulled $500 million in federal funding from mRNA vaccine research, and ended the agency’s recommendations for children and pregnant women to receive the covid-19 vaccines, to list just a few.
Kennedy may not want or be able to remove the covid-19 shots from the market, but he certainly has and will continue to score wins for the antivaccination movement—to all our detriment.
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