Kennedy’s lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine
CNN
President-elect Donald Trump has praised the polio vaccine as the “greatest thing,” but a lawyer affiliated with Trump’s pick to lead the country’s top health agency has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of the vaccine used in the United States.
President-elect Donald Trump has praised the polio vaccine as the “greatest thing,” but a lawyer affiliated with Trump’s pick to lead the country’s top health agency has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of the vaccine used in the United States. The lawyer, Aaron Siri, filed the petition in 2022 on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a nonprofit that challenges the safety of vaccines and vaccine mandates. Siri has been working closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – a vaccine skeptic and Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services – to choose officials to serve in the incoming administration. He was also Kennedy’s personal lawyer during his own presidential campaign. “The FDA is continuing to review the petition,” an agency spokesperson said in an email to CNN on Friday. “We cannot predict when the reviews will be completed. The FDA will consider the concerns outlined in the petition as a final decision is made. The FDA will respond directly to the petitioner, and that response will be posted on the docket. Until such time, we cannot comment further.” If Kennedy is confirmed as head of HHS, he’ll oversee the FDA and could take the rare step of intervening in its petition review process. In a recent interview, Kennedy told NBC News that he wasn’t going to take away anybody’s vaccines but said, “People ought to have a choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information.” Trump told Time magazine in an interview that was conducted in late November but published this week that more research will get underway and that he would consider getting rid of some vaccines for children, “if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial.” But Trump has also praised polio vaccination.
