Donald Trump’s health secretary pick RFK Jr is known as an anti-vaxxer but he said it is more myth than real as he and his children are vaccinated and he said he would never restrict access to vaccines if confirmed to his position. But now his right-hand man is up to scrap the polio vaccine, the New York Times reported. Kennedy Jr’s personal attorney Aaron Siri has sued the FDA to withdraw its approval for the polio vaccine, the NYT report said.
Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, COVID-19 vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions, the report said.
But Siri did all this on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, a nonprofit whose founder is a close ally of Kennedy.
Though the petitions have no direct link with Kennedy, the NYT report said that Kennedy’s close partnership with Siri suggests that vaccine policy will be under sharp scrutiny. Siri has been there with Kennedy as he interviewed candidates for his department and the candidates have been asked about vaccines.
Will Siri be part of Kennedy’s department?
The NYT report said Kennedy has privately expressed interest in having Siri serve in the Health and Human Services Department’s top legal job, general counsel. However, Siri has suggested he may have more influence outside the administration. At his law firm, Siri & Glimstad, he oversees about 40 professionals working on vaccine cases and policy.
Like Kennedy, Siri insists he does not want to take vaccines away from anyone who wants them. “You want to get the vaccine — it’s America, a free country,” he told Arizona legislators last year.
The NYT report said Siri asserted that all his petitions were filed on behalf of different clients and RFK Jr had nothing to do with those.