Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the anti–vaccine conspiracy theorist Donald Trump promised would be given free rein over America’s health agencies, has vowed to gut those agencies.
In an interview with MSNBC Wednesday from Mar-a-Lago, Kennedy said he planned to root out “corruption” in U.S. health agencies—by clearing them out.
“In some categories of worker there are entire departments, like the nutrition department and the FDA, that are… that have to go, that are not doing their jobs, they’re not protecting our kids,” Kennedy said, launching into a complaint about the number of ingredients in Froot Loops.
When asked whether he would eliminate the agencies, Kennedy said he couldn’t do anything like that without congressional approval, but that he would go after “corruption.”
Kennedy did offer one slightly less depressing missive: “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines,” he claimed.
The failed presidential candidate has pushed back on the notion that he is “anti-vaccine” but has repeatedly elevated claims that vaccines have been linked to autism. He has also worked with the Children’s Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine group.
NPR reported that the Trump administration plans to provide “information” to citizens about vaccines, which might repeat and elevate these claims.
That’s not all that Kennedy is planning. He posted on X over the weekend that the Trump White House planned to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water” within the first month of a Trump presidency.
Fluoride helps to prevent tooth decay, which can cause life-threatening infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has listed fluoridation as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.
To give some idea of what banning fluoride might look like, Calgary, Canada, banned fluoride in 2011. In the eight years after, the need for intravenous antibiotic therapy by children to avoid death from infection skyrocketed 700 percent at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.
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