Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the U.S. Surgeon General during the first Trump administration, is warning Republicans that they will own any disease outbreaks that occur on their watch. President-elect Donald Trump has made controversial nominations for public health roles, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (NIH), and Dr. David Weldon (CDC), among others.
“Republicans must understand,” said Dr. Adams, who is a former Vice Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), “they’re gonna own any and all preventable outbreaks / harm moving forward.”
Adams was responding to his fellow former Trump administration official, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but left before the COVID pandemic.
“We face a grim and avoidable resurgence of once vanquished childhood infectious diseases if we follow down a current path now being laid in Washington,” Dr. Gottlieb had warned.
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“Good points from Dr. Gottlieb here,” Adams said, referring to Gottlieb’s remarks and his CNBC interview. “I’ve spoken with him, and know both he and I want the next administration to do well- because their failure is America’s failure.”
Gottlieb also warned that actions Trump’s nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), RFK Jr. (photo) may take “will cost lives in this country.”
“You’re gonna see, remember, you’re gonna see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down. And like I said, if we lose another five percent [vaccinated], which could happen in the next year or two, we will see large measles outbreaks,” Gottlieb predicted, referring to the MMR vaccination the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends, one of more than a dozen on the CDC’s schedule.
Adams also said, “My advice to the new administration – focus 100% on improving the nutrition and safety of our food supply. Lean into the chronic disease issue. And just stop talking about vaccinations. Let your legacy be about truly extending life expectancy, and not about measles and pertussis.”
Gottlieb had warned that pertussis, a highly contagious infectious disease commonly known as whooping cough, “is certainly something people need to think about right now. Like I said, there’s outbreaks in multiple states, and that’s only gonna get worse.”
Adams alleged that Democrats “in many cases unfairly placed all the blame for Covid on Trump and Republicans, but now Republicans are setting THEMSELVES up to take blame for a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases, and every kid who ends up harmed.”
In 2021, The Guardian reported that the U.S. “could have averted 40% of Covid deaths,” according to a “panel examining Trump’s policies.”
At least 1.2 million people in America have died of COVID.
RFK Jr. is seen as an anti-vaxxer despite his opposition to the label.
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“In speeches spanning 6 years,” NBC News this week reported in published video, “RFK Jr. shares conspiracy theories about vaccines, likens scientists to Nazis.”
“In remarks at AutismOne conferences in 2013, 2017 and 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likened vaccinating children to putting them in ‘Nazi death camps’ and falsely alleged a cover-up of vaccine injuries similar to the child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.”
According to The Hill, “Kennedy’s position would give him significant power over the agencies that regulate vaccines, and he could potentially seek to reduce vaccine funding requests, withdraw vaccine recommendations and restrict legal protections for vaccine makers, among other actions.”
He has claimed if confirmed he won’t “take anyone’s vaccines away,” but he could also “delay or revoke vaccine recommendations.”
“Vaccines have helped save the lives of more than 154 million people across the globe over the last 50 years, according to the World Health Organization. But there are a very small number of people who have been injured by some vaccines,” The Hill notes. “As a result, drug companies are cautious when making vaccines, and legal protections have been in place to shield vaccine makers from lawsuits in most cases since the 1986 passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.”
BBC News reports that Kennedy “said at a rally in Arizona earlier this month that he plans to fire and replace 600 employees at the NIH – which oversees vaccine research – as soon as Trump takes the White House.”
“The longtime lawyer also said last month that he intends ‘to have every nutritional scientist’ in the health and agriculture departments fired on day one of a Trump presidency because he alleges they are co-opted by corporate interests.”
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Image of RFK Jr. via Reuters
