In the midst of all the tub-thumping Sturm und Drang drama of Donald Trump's cabinet appointments and their confirmation hearings, one appointment that has been all but overlooked is that of Robert Kennedy Jr. to oversee and chair a committee on "vaccine safety and scientific integrity".
Like several other of Trump appointments, this is rather like putting a wolf in charge of the sheep. Kennedy is a notorious anti-vaxxer, who still believes strongly that standard vaccines cause autism. He blusters that "we ought to be debating the science", when in fact the science has been debated ad nauseam, and the autism claims have been definitively disproven.
Trump too is an anti-vaxxer, who even made a point during the election campaign of seeking out and meeting with discredited English physician Andrew Wakefield, the man who was single-handedly responsible for starting the whole vaccination-autism misinformation saga, before his paper was comprehensively debunked and Wakefield himself had his medical license revoked for ethical violations.
So, the Kennedy appointment is perhaps not a big surprise, coming as it does straight out of the Trump playbook. But it is certainly a scary development, and another indication of how far back into the dark ages Trump is going to drag his country.
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