President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. teamed up in a Cabinet meeting Thursday to push more health misinformation.
Discussing autism in children, Trump resurfaced the false claim that external factors like vaccines could be to blame.
“There’s got to be something artificial out there that’s doing this. You stop taking something, you stop eating something or maybe it’s a shot, but something’s causing it,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Kennedy argued that there is an autism “epidemic” caused by “exposures.”
There is not an epidemic of autism. Because the condition is better understood, it has become easier to diagnose autism in recent years—but people have always been autistic. And there is absolutely no link between autism and vaccines.
This is a long-debunked hoax that has been investigated dozens of times. It does not exist. But Kennedy has spent years promoting a false vaccine-autism link and has even been blamed for deaths related to his unscientific advocacy.
Disturbingly, Kennedy recently hired a fellow anti-vaccine activist to purportedly investigate links between immunization and autism. These links do not exist.
During the meeting, Kennedy also said he was working with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin to change federal rules on the use of fluoride in drinking water.
“I'm working with Lee Zeldin to reassess the fluoride rules based upon the August release by the National Toxicity Program of new science that shows a direct inverse correlation between exposure to fluoride and IQ loss, particularly in children,” Kennedy said.
But the study Kennedy referenced was regarding natural exposure to fluoride, not fluoride that’s added to drinking water. Attacking fluoridation is a long-time obsession of right-wing conspiracy theorists like Kennedy.
The World Health Organization has approved the use of fluoride in drinking water, and studies show that it is a significant deterrent to tooth decay. In areas where fluoridation was halted, dental cavities increased in children. Since the 1940s, conservatives have attacked this practice, arguing that it’s part of a communist plot.
It isn’t.
Kennedy and Trump’s comments come as the country faces the worst measles outbreak in decades. A second unvaccinated child died from measles last week, while Kennedy continues to downplay the need to vaccinate children to protect them from infection.
Americans die while two of the most influential health policy leaders push medical quackery.
Campaign Action Oliver Willis April 11, 2025 at 12:30AM From Daily Kos
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