Dr. Paul Offit is an authority on vaccines and infectious diseases. Please read this post from his blog Beyond the Noise.

He writes:

On July 16, 2024, Brandy Zadrozny, an investigative reporter and journalist for NBC News, posted a video on X of a conversation between RFK Jr. and Donald Trump. “Whoops,” writes Zadrozny. “Seems like RFK Jr.’s son posted and has since deleted a video of a call between RFK Jr. and Trump.” When he realized that his son had posted the video, RFK Jr. was mortified. “When President Trump called me,” he wrote. “I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.”

Trump was talking to RFK Jr. about vaccines.  “Something is wrong with the whole system,” said Trump. “Remember, I said you need small doses. Small doses. [Children receive] 38 different vaccines and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a 10 pound or 20-pound baby. And then you see the baby starting to change radically. And I’ve seen it too many times.”

None of this was new. Trump had repeated what he had said during a presidential debate on September 17, 2015. “Autism has become an epidemic that has gotten totally out of control,” he said, suggesting that high concentrations of vaccines given all at once was causing the problem. “Just the other day, two years old, two- and one-half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick and is now autistic.” Trump said that he wanted vaccines to be given in “smaller doses over longer periods of time.” Donald Trump, a reality TV star, real estate developer, and politician is asking us to believe that his knowledge of phase 1 dose-ranging studies is greater than the scientists and physicians who evaluate those studies.

Alison Singer, the president and co-founder of the Autism Science Foundation and the mother of a child with autism, responded to that immediately. “Donald Trump is a part of a fringe movement that…[has] dangerously perpetuated the false link between vaccines and autism,” she said. “The facts are clear. Vaccines do not cause autism. Some people may not like the facts, but they don’t get to change them, even if they are running for president of the United States.”

The most worrisome part of the conversation between RFK Jr. and Donald Trump occurred at the end, when Trump said, “I would love for you to do something. And I think it would be good for you. [Because] we are going to win. We’re going to win.” Was Trump implying that RFK Jr. might have a place in his administration. If so, the public should be aware that no one has propagated more false information about vaccines and vaccine safety than RFK Jr. When asked on a recent podcast with Lex Fridman to name a vaccine that he thought was valuable, he couldn’t think of one. If RFK Jr. is given a place in the Trump administration, we can be sure that his vaccine disinformation, conspiracy theories, and false beliefs will be center stage, putting the health of children and this nation at risk.

Imagine RFK Jr. as head of the Centers for Disease Control. The Federal Drug Administration. Good grief!