RFK Jr reportedly sought to block Covid-19 vaccinations at height of pandemic | Robert F Kennedy Jr

Robert F Kennedy Jr reportedly sought to dam the historic and pioneering new Covid-19 vaccinations in 2021, six months after they started being rolled out on the peak of the pandemic when many hundreds of individuals had been dying of the virus.

In a petition filed with the US Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) in Could 2021, Donald Trump’s choose to steer the $1.8tn Division of Well being and Human Providers – who was not an elected politician or public official at the moment – referred to as on well being officers to rescind emergency authorities authorization for the photographs and to chorus from approving any Covid vaccine sooner or later, the New York Occasions reported on Friday.

The petition, the newspaper reported, was filed on behalf of Youngsters’s Well being Protection, a non-profit group that Kennedy, now 71, led and had based.

It argued that what Kennedy claimed to be the dangers of the vaccines outweighed the advantages. He additionally mentioned that they weren’t mandatory as a result of there have been different remedies for Covid-19 already accessible, together with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, each of which had been promoted by Donald Trump, then the US president. Nevertheless, such different remedies had been discovered by public well being consultants to be ineffective, whereas the ground-breaking vaccines dramatically lowered each the lethality and severity of the coronavirus and finally helped to save lots of hundreds of thousands of lives within the US and the world over.

Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna led the cost within the US to develop groundbreaking vaccines utilizing new expertise in file time, additionally closely backed by the Trump administration at a time when a terrified public was determined to withstand the virus, to which people didn’t have immunity.

Kennedy’s petition got here 5 months after Trump introduced that the FDA’s inexperienced gentle for the vaccine was imminent underneath a $20bn program he had dubbed Operation Warp Pace and described as “a monumental nationwide achievement”.

Kennedy will face stress throughout affirmation hearings within the US Senate subsequent week over his anti-vaccine stance and pushing of debunked theories, corresponding to a hyperlink between the rise in childhood vaccine schedules and an increase in autism charges. Trump has mentioned he helps an investigation into the problem, regardless of outcry from main voices within the public well being sphere who’ve lengthy seen Kennedy’s views and outsize affect as harmful however at the moment are acutely alarmed as he stands on the point of changing into US well being secretary.

However there could also be far between Trump and Kennedy on the problem of Covid vaccines and the broader challenge of inoculation and analysis into new vaccines. Research have discovered a hyperlink between mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and an elevated danger of myocarditis and pericarditis – coronary heart and heart- muscle irritation – however deemed the chance low.

In the meantime, in an interview with the Wall Avenue Journal on Saturday, pro-vaccine tech chief and philanthropist Invoice Gates, the previous chief government of Microsoft, mentioned he had a three-hour dinner with Trump and located the president-elect to be receptive to vaccinations and vaccine improvement.

Gates described their dialogue as “fairly wide-ranging”, and mentioned the 2 males talked about world well being points – a spotlight of the $75bn Gates Basis – and the event of a remedy for HIV.

“He, within the Covid days, accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates instructed the Journal. “So I used to be asking him if perhaps the identical form of factor might be accomplished right here, and we each received, I believe, fairly enthusiastic about that.”

The eating companions additionally mentioned efforts to fight polio all over the world, which the World Well being Group had just lately warned was at “excessive danger” of spreading within the decimated Palestinian territory of Gaza amid the navy onslaught by Israel.

Gates added that he felt Trump “was energized and looking out ahead to serving to to drive innovation. I used to be frankly impressed with how properly he confirmed loads of curiosity within the points I introduced up.”

Kennedy instructed reporters that he was “all for” the polio vaccine – hours after Trump mentioned Individuals are “not going to lose the polio vaccine”.