Ex-FDA Commissioner Says RFK Jr. 'Will Cost Lives' As Head Of Health Department
Scott Gottlieb, who served as Food and Drug Administration commissioner during Donald Trump’s first term, is seriously alarmed at the president-elect’s intention to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy is a vocal skeptic of vaccines and other mainstream public health measures. His stated intentions include removing all fluoride from public drinking water, undermining vaccination efforts and gutting the FDA, an agency under the HHS umbrella.
“If RFK follows through on his intentions — and I believe he will, and I believe he can — it will cost lives in this country,” Gottlieb said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“You’re going to see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down,” he said, citing research that suggests just a 5% drop in measles vaccinations would likely have an outsized impact and lead to “large measles outbreaks.”
“For every 1,000 cases of measles that occur in children, there will be one death,” Gottlieb said. “And we are not good in this country at diagnosing and treating measles. If you look at the outbreak in Ohio, 30% of the kids were hospitalized, you look at the outbreak in Minnesota, 20% were hospitalized.”
Trump’s former FDA commissioner on RFK Jr and vaccines today.
“If he follows through on his intentions … it will cost lives,” said @ScottGottliebMD.
Gottlieb laid out several scenarios linked to the effect of falling vaccination rates, such as a rise in child measles deaths. pic.twitter.com/kUKH49Vuth— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) November 29, 2024
(Ohio had a measles outbreak in 2022; Minnesota has had one this year.)
“We’ve lost the ability to diagnose it because doctors aren’t accustomed to seeing it,” Gottlieb said of measles.
“I’m not sure how people really understand how Kennedy’s intentions are going to translate into policy, and how serious he is,” he added on CNBC.
Gottlieb said that he has personally had conversations with Republican senators who will be in charge of confirming Kennedy to the top HHS post.
“There’s skepticism in the Republican caucus more than, I think, the press is reporting right now,” he said, before giving some examples.
“There’s going to be [agriculture] state senators that are concerned about his impact on food prices. There’s going to be pro-lifers who are concerned about his positions on abortion. There’s going to be a number of pro-public-health-minded senators who have deep concerns about his positions on vaccines.”
Gottlieb also gave examples of potentially devastating actions Kennedy could take with ease, including replacing seasoned officials with handpicked candidates and frustrating the ability of states to use federal funding meant for childhood vaccinations.
Trump’s pick to run the FDA, Martin Makary, aligns with Kennedy on several topics, such as his concern about the influence of pharmaceutical companies on government policy.
“There’s a lot of things [Trump officials] could do Day 1, very easily, administratively, and I don’t think there’s a thing Congress can do,” Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb is on the board of Pfizer, the drugmaker behind one of the most widely-used COVID-19 vaccines. Asked if that influences his stance on shots for kids — an area of particular concern for Kennedy — Gottlieb said Pfizer did not make pediatric vaccines.
“Pfizer’s not in that market,” he said.
