Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week by catching up on the latest science news.
First, we’ve got a brief update from Tanya Lewis, a senior editor covering health and medicine at Scientific American. She’s here to unpack the news that President-elect Donald Trump plans to put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. What follows is a brief conversation Tanya and I recorded a couple days back.
Tanya, what is RFK, Jr.’s background in regard to health?
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Tanya Lewis: RFK, Jr., is an environmental lawyer by training, but he has no medical background, and he has very strong anti-vaccine views. He’s argued that vaccines cause autism—which is, of course, debunked.
He’s also made lots of false and exaggerated claims about the dangers of water fluoridation. He’s argued for unproven and potentially dangerous therapies like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID and chelation, which is a method of removing heavy metals from the body for autism and, of course, it doesn’t work for that.
He also wants to end what he calls the [Food and Drug Administration’s], quote, “war on public health,” which includes regulation of raw milk and some unproven stem cell treatments. He also wants to stop the, quote, “revolving door” between industry and government and regulate ultra-processed foods, although it’s not really clear how he would actually do those things.
Feltman: And so what does it actually mean that he’s been nominated into this role?
Lewis: I think his nomination suggests that the Trump administration has very little regard for established…
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