The announcement that President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the unique chief of the U.S. Division of Health and Human Products and services has introduced renewed consideration to many comments the nominee has made about public nicely being.

Kennedy was announced as Trump’s decide on November 14. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he will lead a department that oversees myriad agencies that retain a watch on important public nicely being applications and conduct scientific research. The checklist entails the National Institutes of Health, the Meals and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Assign watch over and Prevention. Which arrangement that Kennedy could well per chance accept as true with a hand in drug and vaccine approvals, meals safety and more, disorders that touch almost each person.

Lots of Kennedy’s views on nicely being disorders bustle counter to decades of research and expansive scientific and clinical consensus, yet he has obtained a public following. Right here’s a test at the established science within the aid of one of the most main principle disorders Kennedy has raised within the past and that shall be impacted below the unique administration.

Truth: Vaccines assign lives

Kennedy is a dominant force within the anti-vaccine circulate (SN: 5/11/21). He advised podcaster Lex Fridman in a July 2023 interview, “There’s no vaccine that is, , safe and effective.”

No longer simply. When it comes to effectiveness, the World Health Organization says, “vaccines accept as true with saved more human lives than any a kind of clinical invention in history” — reward that is backed by expansive evidence.

In the US, a slew of infectious ailments, at the side of polio, diphtheria, measles and smallpox, induced loads of hundreds of instances of illness within the twentieth century. By the tip of that century, instances had dropped by 95 to 100%, primarily attributable to the fashioned introduction of vaccines.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 vaccination averted 14.4 million deaths globally within the first twelve months it was on hand, from December 2020 to December 2021, researchers reported within the Lancet Infectious Ailments in 2022.

And research on the dear influence of vaccines keeps coming. Since 1974, vaccination in opposition to 14 pathogens has averted 154 million deaths worldwide, most of them among early life: Immunization averted 146 million deaths among children youthful than 5, researchers reported within the Lancet in Could.

In the US, routine childhood immunizations for youths born from 1994 to 2023 could well per chance well accept as true with staved off an estimated 508 million instances of illness, stopped 32 million hospitalizations and averted 1.1 million early life from dying, researchers reported within the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Listing in August.

The spread of misinformation and disinformation on vaccine safety has a lengthy history however now reaches many more folks by arrangement of social media (SN: 11/11/21). Kennedy’s obtain Instagram narrative was taken down from 2021 to 2023 for posting debunked claims regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines. Total misinformation regarding the protection of vaccines has been refuted by a tall body of evidence. To illustrate, vaccines assemble no longer diminish the body’s capability to mount an immune response.

Vaccines are tested in folks for safety and effectiveness earlier than being licensed by the FDA. After approval, plenty of nationwide surveillance systems continue to show screen vaccine safety.

“Vaccines are the most get and most label-effective formula to defend early life, households and communities from illness, incapacity and death,” Benjamin Hoffman, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, mentioned in a assertion on November 15.

Truth: The measles vaccine doesn’t trigger autism

Anti-vaccine advocates at the side of Kennedy continue to push the debunked conception that vaccines trigger autism. A paper revealed in 1998 within the Lancet speculated to hunt down a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. The paper, according to falsified files, was later retracted, however the fracture was carried out, and the premise that vaccines in fashioned could well per chance trigger autism took off (SN: 5/11/21).

The science is settled: There could be no evidence that suggests vaccines — or any of the ingredients in them – trigger autism spectrum complications.

The causes of autism aren’t identified, however they’re seemingly complex (SN: 10/16/18; SN: 7/29/11). Fresh thinking is centered on differences in mind construction early in lifestyles, doubtlessly even within the womb. Scientists are exploring genetic differences and differences in how neurons grow as that you are going to be ready to ponder of links, and are investigating ways to probe for the dysfunction early in lifestyles (SN: 2/27/14; SN: 1/11/19; SN: 4/10/17).

Truth: Fluoride in water strengthens enamel

Earlier this month, Kennedy announced his design of casting off fluoride from ingesting water.

A naturally occuring mineral, fluoride has a a kind of superpower: It’ll rebuild enamel. When acid from micro organism eats away at enamel enamel, fluoride can breach the gap and entice a kind of sturdy minerals akin to calcium and phosphate to latch on. This process, called remineralization, keeps cavities at bay.

That’s why fluoride has been added to water provides within the US for the reason that Forties – a transfer described in 1999 by the CDC as with out a doubt one of the most 10 nice public nicely being achievements of the twentieth century.

Kennedy and a kind of fluoride skeptics argue that the mineral damages the growing brains of early life. And in excessive doses, it goes to. There had been experiences of fluoride toxicity from across the enviornment. But as the announcing goes, the dose makes the poison. In the US, the optimum dose of fluoride is location at 0.7 milligrams per liter of water, nicely below ranges which had been linked to difficulty.

Some communities that accept as true with removed fluoride from municipal water provides accept as true with smartly-known a rise in enamel decay. In Canada, early life in Calgary, the place fluoridation was stopped in 2011, had more decay than neighboring children in Edmonton, the place fluoride stayed in water. An analogous inclinations of more dental decay accept as true with grew to change into up in Israel, which stopped fluoridating water in 2014, and in Juneau, Alaska, the place fluoridation was stopped in 2007.

Cavities can consequence in difficulty, difficulty speaking and eating, social and psychological difficulty. Untreated enamel decay, in children and adults, can trigger death. Fluoridated water is backed by clinical organizations at the side of the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Affiliation.

Truth: Microbes in uncooked milk can assemble folks sick

In an Oct. 25 put up on X, Kennedy accused the FDA of “aggressive suppression” of a laundry checklist of gear, with out a doubt one of which was uncooked milk.

Uncooked milk hasn’t been pasteurized, a process that heat-treats meals products to shatter immoral microbes (SN: 11/18/22). Proponents checklist a ramification of causes to drink uncooked milk, at the side of the claim that some micro organism in uncooked milk could well per chance well very nicely be vital for gut nicely being. But these micro organism advance from cows or the farm ambiance, and fully microbes that advance from folks could well per chance well very nicely be an asset to our nicely being.

Pasteurization to shatter the circulate stuff is main for meals safety, in preserving with both the FDA and CDC. Folks that drink uncooked milk could well per chance well very nicely be uncovered to foodborne micro organism akin to E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria, all of which is able to trigger excessive illness.

What’s more, genetic traces of hen flu accept as true with proven up in milk amid an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows (SN: 4/25/24). While pasteurization kills the virus, it can probably well per chance stick around in uncooked milk and pose an infection likelihood. Mice that consume virus-spiked milk can get infected with hen flu, for instance, suggesting humans is inclined to be in likelihood, too.

Truth: Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin don’t treat COVID-19

Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, two capsules that obtained notoriety for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, were furthermore listed in Kennedy’s Oct. 25 X put up. While early research carried out on cells in dishes raised hopes that the remedies could well per chance abet COVID patients, myriad research accept as true with since proven that hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, and ivermectin, an antiparasitic, are ineffective in opposition to the coronavirus (SN: 8/2/20).

Despite the remarkable evidence in opposition to the capsules’ employ for COVID, some folks, at the side of Kennedy, continue to falsely claim that they would well per chance accept as true with saved lives for the duration of the pandemic. In a July 2023 interview with Fox Facts, Kennedy mentioned that fewer folks would accept as true with died if hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin had been on hand to treat COVID. The FDA had licensed hydroxychloroquine for emergency employ within the pandemic’s early days. But the agency pulled that authorization attributable to research showed it was no better than a placebo at preventing or dampening the illness (SN: 6/15/20).