The Trump White House would make vaccine skepticism mainstream

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Anyone who doubts that a second Trump term would entrench vaccine hesitancy into the mainstream of American government and American life should watch Kaitlan Collins' interview on CNN on Wednesday with the co-chair of Donald Trump's presidential transition team, Howard Lutnick, watch.

On the one hand, Lutnick disputed vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recent claim to his supporters that he would lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services if Trump were elected.

On the other hand, after spending a few hours with Kennedy this week, Lutnick seemed convinced that the government was hiding something about vaccines.

When Collins noted that none of them were doctors but that the vaccines had been shown to be safe and effective, Lutnick asked, “Why do you think vaccines are safe?”

Collins told him that children are having them and are doing well.

Kaitlan Collins discusses RFK Jr. and vaccines with Trump-Vance transition co-chair

“Why do you think they're okay?” Lutnick asked. He pointed to the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism and, citing Kennedy, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is blocking data on vaccines.

“(Kennedy) wants the data so he can say these things are unsafe,” Lutnick told Collins. “He says, 'If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I'm going to take the data and show that it's not safe.' And if you then remove product liability, the companies will immediately take these vaccines off the market. So that's his point. He’s not trying to do anything, just things that make sense.”

Regarding Kennedy's goal. If it is as Lutnick says, Kennedy appears interested in unleashing a wave of vaccine lawsuits to force manufacturers to withdraw vaccines.

Regarding liability. Congress responded to a wave of vaccine-related lawsuits in 1986 by creating the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, intended to compensate the extremely small portion of the population that develops adverse reactions to vaccines. According to the Justice Department, the program, funded by an excise tax on recommended vaccines, has paid out more than $4.5 billion to about 9,500 people since 1988. Vaccine manufacturers can be sued in state court for infringement.

Regarding the accusation of “blocked” data. What are Kennedy and Lutnick talking about? It's not clear at all.

Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again PAC referred me to a spokesman for his discontinued presidential campaign, who did not return a request for comment.

Lutnick attempted to clarify his position in a post following the CNN interview

“We would be doing everyone a favor if the administration would respect Bobby Kennedy’s request to provide the full data,” Lutnick wrote on X.

When I asked the CDC for brief comment on this story about whether there was any “blocked” data, they noted that it was a difficult topic to address and wanted a concrete example to respond to. Lutnick obviously had no details. But he's an investment banker, not a medical researcher.

Jerome Adams, who was U.S. surgeon general under Trump, said Kennedy should not take a senior role in a Trump administration.

“Bottom line: It's difficult to implement other policy priorities when you're dealing with a measles or polio outbreak,” he told The Washington Post.

Ultimately, the CDC issued the following statement from a spokesperson:

The system used to monitor the ongoing safety of vaccines is complex and complicated.

This is a government-run reporting system, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which is essentially a hotline where anyone can file a claim for any reason. These complaints are searchable, including by the public, but they are not verified and reports may have nothing to do with a vaccine dose at all. The searchable data is also non-specific.

The CDC also maintains the Vaccine Safety Data Link, a collaborative effort between the CDC and healthcare organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, and the data has been used in many studies. Publicly sharing specific information about some of these cases could violate data protection laws.

The CDC is also involved in the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project, which coordinates a nationwide network of experts and also conducts research on vaccine safety.

The point is not that any of this is perfect, but rather that a lot of work is being put into continually assessing the safety of vaccines with the help of government agencies.

There are also independent organizations such as the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University.

But while the system satisfies the medical community, it increasingly fails to satisfy the public, a phenomenon that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and related vaccines, as well as recent policies.

While in 2001 94% of Americans said it was extremely or very important for parents to have their children vaccinated, that number has fallen to 69%. According to long-term Gallup polls, it's still a strong majority, but behind it lies a remarkable partisan shift.

In the years since the pandemic, the share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say it is extremely important for parents to get their children vaccinated has fallen from 52% in 2019 to 26% in 2024. A strong majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners, 63%, still say childhood vaccinations are extremely important.

Dr. Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety, wrote with colleagues for the New England Journal of Medicine this year that more needs to be done to maintain public trust in vaccines. They noted that extremely rare side effects “no longer appear rare when millions or billions of people are vaccinated.”

They recommended taking excess money from the VICP, the People's Side Effects Fund, to provide more funding for safety research and increase public confidence in vaccines. They also recommended a holistic, independent review of the vaccine safety system.