Experts are alarmed as department says it will alter vaccine testing methods and build new ‘surveillance systems’
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his department have made a series of misleading statements that alarmed vaccine experts and advocates in recent days – including that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine includes “aborted fetus debris”.
Health department officials released statements saying they could alter vaccine testing and build new “surveillance systems” on Wednesday, both of which have unnerved experts who view new placebo testing as potentially unethical.
“It’s his goal to even further lessen trust in vaccines and make it onerous enough for manufacturers that they will abandon it,” said Dr Paul Offit, an expert on infectious disease and immunology and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, about the statements and Kennedy. “It’s a fragile market.”
In this same week, Kennedy exhorted parents to “do their own research” in a talkshow interview – the phrase has become pop culture shorthand for a shallow internet search that casts people into the arms of the disinformation ecosystem.
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