Trump transition official says RFK Jr. wants to force vaccines off the market

Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team, said in a Wednesday interview that former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is backing former President Trump, is seeking the federal data to prove vaccines should be kept off the market.

Lutnick added, however, that Kennedy will not get — nor does he want — the job of secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“He's not getting a job for HHS,” Lutnick told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, pushing back against the claim that Trump had promised Kennedy the job.

“He wants the data, so he can say, ‘These things are unsafe.’ He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I'll take on the data and show that it's not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off, off of the market.’”

“So, that's his point. He's not trying to do anything, but things that made sense,” Lutnick added.

He said he recently spent two-and-a-half hours with Kennedy, who explained to him several theories related to vaccines that Lutnick said made sense to him.

Lutnick repeated several unsubstantiated claims in the interview with Collins, including that the government is withholding data about vaccines, that vaccines are linked to a rise in autism diagnoses and that scientists were paid to say that Kennedy is lying about vaccines.

Autism diagnoses have increased steadily in the last couple of decades, a trend many scientists attribute to a change in environmental factors, a broadening of criteria for the diagnosis and a wider awareness about the disease. Scientists also say that having an older father can increase one’s chance of autism.

Kennedy has previously said that Trump has promised him “control” of HHS and the related health agencies, leading to concern among some scientists about the consequences on vaccine access and research availability if Trump returns to the White House.

—Updated at 10:23 p.m.