President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that “I don’t like” school vaccine mandates and that “brilliant people” are investigating whether inoculations cause autism — as famously vaccine-skeptical Health and Human Services secretary-designee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with senators considering his nomination.
Trump 78, broached the controversial subject matter during a 70-minute press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla. — while also trying to allay fears that Kennedy, a former Democrat who backed his presidential bid, would move to yank vaccines out of use if confirmed.
“I think he’s gonna be much less radical than you would think. I think he’s got a very open mind, or I wouldn’t have put him there,” Trump said at one point, saying that “I found him to be very rational” and “you’re not going to lose the polio vaccine.”
But Trump equivocated when asked directly by a reporter, “Vaccines and autism — do you think there’s a link?”
“Well, I don’t,” Trump began his answer before adding, “Look, right now, you have some very brilliant people looking at it.”
“I had dinner the other night with the head of Pfizer, the head of Eli Lilly, and RFK, as you know, and [Dr. Mehmet] Oz, and we had 10 other people within the administration that are involved, medical, and we’re looking to find out,” Trump added.
“You know, if you look at autism, so 30 years ago, we had, I’ve heard numbers of like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000, and now I’m hearing numbers of 1 in 100. So something’s wrong. There’s something wrong, and we’re going to find out about it.”
“Do you want RFK Jr. to revoke any vaccines?” a journalist asked.
“No, I want him to come back with a report. We’re going to find out a lot,” Trump said, before floating pesticides as a possible cause of health conditions.
“Europe doesn’t use pesticides, and yet, they have a better mortality rate than we do. They don’t use pesticides. In fact, they use it as an excuse not to take our farm product. We spend billions and billions of dollars on pesticides, and something bad is happening. Again, you take a look at autism today versus 20, 25, years ago, it’s like not even believable,” Trump said.
“So we’re going to have reports. No, nothing’s going to happen very quickly.”
A reporter asked, “Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?”
“I don’t like mandates. I’m not a big mandate person,” Trump said, mentioning specifically his historical opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.
State school systems, rather than the federal government, typically set student vaccine mandates. Currently, all 50 states require the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine for K-12 school children as well as the polio vaccine — though states have wide-ranging policies allowing for exemptions on medical, religious or philosophical grounds.
Unvaccinated children have in instances been identified as causing local measles outbreaks.
The theory that vaccines may be linked to autism is regarded as a conspiracy theory by the medical establishment due to the lack of scientific evidence.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has drawn concern from some Senate Republicans — who will hold a 53-47 majority next month — and it’s unclear if he can secure enough votes to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“RFK has as much chance of getting confirmed by the Senate as he does of taking a vaccine shot,” a Senate Republican source scoffed to The Post last month.
