WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin said on Monday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary and a vaccine skeptic, told him he supports polio vaccination.
“He said, ‘I 100% support polio vaccination,'” Mullin told reporters after meeting with Kennedy, who has for years sown doubt over the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including asserting a debunked link between vaccines and autism.
According to Mullin, Kennedy said the polio vaccine is different because it was one of the first vaccines to be developed. He quoted Kennedy as suggesting that children receive too many shots and saying, the question is “why are we giving our kids 72 shots now?”
Trump has said he could end some childhood vaccinations if he thinks they are dangerous. “It could if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial, but I don’t think it’s going to be very controversial in the end,” he told Time magazine in an interview published last week.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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