Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the first Trump administration, gave a vote of confidence to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as potential head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
NewsNation Senior National Correspondent Brian Entin asked Redfield on Sunday whether there should be concerns that Kennedy, a well-known opponent of vaccines, will introduce a “no-vaccine culture” into public policy.
“No Brian, I don’t think that. I mean, I’m probably one of the biggest advocates for vaccine. You mentioned that — I, when I was CDC director, I would say that I think vaccines are the greatest gift of science to modern medicine and I still believe that,” Redfield said.
“Kennedy is not anti-vaccine. What Kennedy is about is transparency about vaccine, honest discussion about vaccines, asking for the data to show that these vaccines are safe and they’re efficacious.”
Redfield served as CDC director from 2018 to 2021.
Since at least 2005, Kennedy has been one of the most well-known vaccine skeptics and opponents, pushing the claim that vaccines are linked to autism despite a lack of scientific data to corroborate those claims.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate named Kennedy among the top 12 spreaders of online anti-vaccine content.
In 2021, Kennedy described the COVID-19 vaccine as the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” citing data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS, established in the 1980s, is run by both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration. The systems allows anybody to report any effects observed following vaccines, but these reports are not verified before being entered into VAERS.
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