CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta Relays ‘Horror’ of Medical Community at RFK Jr. Nomination
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta relayed the “horror” of the medical community at President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday.
Shortly after it was first reported that Kennedy would be appointed to the post, anchor Jake Tapper asked Gupta what “experts in the health community, the medical community” have had to say about Kennedy.
“Well, you know, it’s not often that the entire medical and public health community is going to be in lockstep on something, but they’re pretty close on this in terms of their significant concerns — horror, even,” replied Gupta. “Somebody said to me today, ‘I can’t think of any single individual who would be more damaging to public health than RFK.’ Keep in mind, I think if the reporting is correct and the job is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, that comprises the CDC — you know, we just got through this pandemic — comprises the FDA, comprises the NIH. He’s talked about wanting to basically strip funding for infectious diseases overall. Again, just coming out of this pandemic with concerns about other viruses and things out there.”
Gupta continued:
The challenge, I think, is that at the same time, there is this whole idea that we’re not a very healthy country. We spend $4.5 trillion on health care and we have some of the worst outcomes in the developed world. An our food supply and other things are partly to blame, things that he’s talked about. So there’s these kernels of agreement with regard to the medical establishment and the public health establishment in particular.
But then there’s these other things like Kaitlin [Colllins] was just talking about that are, they’re not alternative views. They are false views. People often say, “Well, these are alternative views,” they’re not. They you know, people say, “Well, look, I think maybe vaccines could be linked to autism.” Fair enough. That was an issue that came up and it was studied in these large studies, global studies involving hundreds of thousands of kids who were followed for over a decade to see if there was, in fact, a link. Some of the studies actually showed that you were more likely to have autism if you were not vaccinated.
But the point being that issues are raised, issues are studied, and yet they still keep coming up. And I think that’s that’s one of the big concerns. That’s a metaphor, I think, for other things that people are concerned about with him.
Watch above via CNN.
