The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
Robert Kennedy Jr will soon appear on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing as the next US secretary of Health and Human Services. It will be contentious.
In 2023 Kennedy said an early version of the polio vaccine was contaminated and caused cancers that killed more people than polio. It wasn’t true.
A batch of vaccine was contaminated but no link was ever proven to cancer, let alone to thousands of deaths.
Polio killed around 3,000 people in the US in 1952 alone by paralysing them so they couldn't breathe.
By 1955, the NYT recalls, it was paralysing 15,000 Americans a year. It’s since been 99.9 per cent eradicated worldwide by vaccines but could return if vaccination levels fall.
Dr Richard Besser, a paediatrician and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, says nothing has more proven value for children’s health than vaccines, and Kennedy has done “more than just about anybody in shaking the confidence that parents have” in them.
