How Would RFK Jr. Handle BIRD FLU? His Record on Vaccines Has Experts on Edge: NPR 🥼

NPR, Jan. 17, 2025. Ed. - PHOTO: If confirmed, RFK Jr., President-elect Trump's pick for health secretary, would have major influence over how the country responds to the bird flu outbreak and prepares for a possible future pandemic.
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Bird flu's unprecedented spread among livestock and other mammals in the U.S. has raised fears that another pandemic could be in store. The incoming Trump administration will have to prepare for this risk.

As H5N1 sickens more people and animals, scientists warn it could evolve to better infect humans and become more dangerous.

Trump and his picks to helm federal health agencies have largely been silent on bird flu. The messaging so far — and the track record of those Trump has chosen to oversee a potential bird flu crisis — is "worrisome," says Dr. Andrew Pavia, professor of medicine at the University of Utah who's worked on influenza pandemic preparedness for more than two decades. [Here's why bird flu fears are intensifying].

The transition team did not respond to NPR's request for comment on its plans. Trump's choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has an extensive history of making inaccurate and misleading statements on vaccines and infectious diseases. He's a lawyer who for years led an advocacy group that is a major player in the anti-vaccine movement, promoting the long-debunked idea that vaccines lead to autism, among other false claims.

Kennedy denies spreading misinformation, though his criticism of vaccines is well known.

More recently, he made specific comments undermining trust in the bird flu vaccines. In an online post last summer, he claimed there's "no evidence" the licensed shots for the national stockpile will work and that they "appear dangerous." And he suggested in another post that "someone" might bioengineer a dangerous form of the virus to profit off the vaccine. Scientists who study the vaccines are deeply troubled by these statements.

"They are false, baseless and inaccurate," says Dr. Paul Offit, director, Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia...

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/16/nx-s1-5254733/rfk-vaccine-bird-flu-trump-cabinet-picks
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Also: Here's Why Bird Flu Fears Are Intensifying, NPR, Nov. 27, 2024.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/27/nx-s1-5208964/heres-why-bird-flu-fears-are-intensifying