Sabotaging RFK Jr's confirmation will increase vaccine hesitancy
Scott Gottlieb, as usual, only advocates for himself
This week STAT reported that Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, is working to torpedo RFK Jr’s nomination. I have several thoughts
Scott Gottlieb was a poor FDA commissioner. He famously approved Lartruvo, only to have that blow up in his face. (I am happy to elaborate on this in a future post). Then, like a complete corporate sell out, he left FDA to work for Pfizer, pushing vaccine passports and other unethical compulsive tactics to increase sales. Scott represents the swamp of Washington. A man who says he wants to do good, but stays to do well.
Scott Gottlieb is a shrewd political force. I suspect he himself has planted this story (or at least encouraged it) so that he can position himself to be the next HHS director, when DJT fires RFK Jr (I suspect he believes that might occur)
Scott Gottlieb is not thinking about this correctly. If a Pfizer board member sabotages the candidacy of RFK Jr. vaccine hesitancy will increase. I explain in a recent twitter post.
First, vaccine hesitancy has been growing for some time. RFK Jr. is not the beginning or end of it.
Measles outbreaks will happen no matter what. The CDC did the most to fuel it by ignoring COVID19 safety signals, by forcing COVID vaccines on low risk populations, and by wrongly adding COVID19 vaccines to the childhood immunization schedule. The key question is: does it go higher or lower if RFK is confirmed vs. if he is not.
In the thread below, I argue it will be worse if he is not confirmed.
At this point, the best way to curb vaccine hesitancy is to approve RFK Jr, and redirect his energies to generating more data. More data will answer the key questions that remain unanswered: which childhood immunization program is optimal. The worse thing we can do is tank his nomination. Then vaccine hesitancy will explode.
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Vaccines are the top of Gottlieb's interest due to sheer cupidity. I doubt that they are number one for RFKJ. Food is the number one killer and where he will focus first. And the battle with Big Food will dwarf Big Pharma's. But Covid has placed vaccines on top of the list of many of us. We trusted the government regulators for years and now they have proven that they cannot be trusted at all. (Hep B in the first hours of life to protect the infant from the ravages of unsafe sex or intravenous drug use? Spare me.) I was close to the CDC for years. In 1994 I saw a world-class intellectual community in third-world buildings and spent over a decade helping to arrange the funding to rebuild a broken laboratory system. We now have a world-class laboratory system for a bunch of fakes. The recent release of 300 pages of data from the CDC tying vaccines to autism has trashed the entire history of the CDC. It is sad.
Gottlieb was on TV almost every week during the pandemic masquerading as an independent "covid expert," cheering on lockdowns and hyping the vaccine. He was an extremely skillful vaccine salesman. Disturbing how the media continues to introduce him only as "past-FDA Commissioner" while burying the fact that he represents Pharma interests. He has spent his career in the revolving door between govt and the Pharma industry, personifying exactly what needs to be changed.