The director of the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, Dr. Mandy Cohen, expressed concern about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role in the next Trump administration, saying on Wednesday that if given wide sway over health matters, he might use his newfound power to spread misinformation and sow distrust.
Even if Mr. Kennedy is not appointed to a high-level position, such as secretary of health and human services, he appears likely to have a role at the White House. If so, he would “have a lot of influence in things,” Dr. Cohen said in an interview with The New York Times.
“Even without changing one regulation or one piece of guidance,” she said, “the sharing of misinformation from a place of power is concerning.”
Mr. Kennedy is a vocal vaccine skeptic and critic of the C.D.C., the nation’s public health agency. He has in the past promoted theories that suggest H.I.V. is not the true cause of AIDS, that 5G networks are being used for mass surveillance and that Black Americans in particular should avoid being vaccinated.
More recently, he has publicly contradicted the C.D.C.’s longstanding recommendation that communities fluoridate their water to protect against tooth decay. Mr. Kennedy has said Mr. Trump would advise municipalities to stop adding fluoride to their water systems.
Dr. Cohen said she hoped “we can all have a conversation with scientists who work on fluoride” to “make sure we’re all looking at the same set of data and evidence.”
She said that she had not yet heard from either Mr. Kennedy or anyone on the Trump transition team but that she hoped, as they moved from campaigning to governing, they would familiarize themselves with the C.D.C.’s work before passing judgment. “I look forward to engaging in a conversation about, ‘How do we protect the health of our communities?’ ” she said.
Mr. Trump has said he would let Mr. Kennedy “go wild on health.” What exactly that means in practice is unclear. Mr. Trump is said to be considering Mr. Kennedy for the position of secretary of health and human services, but given Mr. Kennedy’s unorthodox views — and the peculiar activities he has been associated with, like dumping a dead bear in Central Park and supposedly decapitating a whale — he might have difficulty gaining Senate confirmation.
The prospect of a second Trump administration, and Mr. Kennedy’s role in it, has rattled people in public health — in particular those at the C.D.C., the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Last Wednesday, the day the presidential election was decided, Dr. Cohen acknowledged as much in a message to the agency’s roughly 12,000 employees.
“Depending on their perspective, I know folks are likely feeling an array of emotions today,” she wrote. “While the world may feel different with changes ahead — our mission has not changed. We are still privileged to wake up every day to protect health and improve lives.”
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