'Grim': Former Trump FDA chief warns new administration 'will cost lives'

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration during Donald Trump’s first administration, has issued a stark warning: the president-elect’s current trajectory could lead to a “grim and avoidable resurgence of once vanquished childhood infectious diseases,” and it will cost American lives.

Dr. Gottlieb, who left the Trump administration before the COVID-19 pandemic, told CNBC on Friday he doesn’t believe Trump understands what Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s nominee to head the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), will actually do if confirmed, and there will be no “guardrails” to protect the American public from his actions.

“I think if RFK follows through on his intentions and I believe he will, and I believe he can, it will cost lives in this country,” Gottlieb warned. He also warned that this could easily start “on day one.”

“You’re gonna see, remember, you’re gonna see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down. And like I said, if we lose another five percent [vaccinated], which could happen in the next year or two, we will see large measles outbreaks,” Gottlieb predicted, referring to the MMR vaccination the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends, one of more than a dozen on the CDC’s schedule.

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“I don’t think they fully understand how Kennedy is going to translate his actions into policy,” Gottlieb explained, referring to both the incoming Trump administration and Congress. “I think some in Congress right now who are deeply skeptical think that they can manage this through things like appropriations riders, that’s not gonna be successful, because like I said, RFK can go in there with a stroke of a pen, disband ACIP, reconstitute it with like-minded people, issue a whole new bunch of recommendations.”

Gottlieb appeared to be referring to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a CDC entity that “comprises medical and public health experts who develop recommendations on the use of vaccines in the civilian population of the United States.”

“He can frustrate the ability to take the money from the Vaccine for Children’s fund [VFC], which would impede a state’s abilities to vaccinate children as a lot of things that they could do day one, very easily, administratively.”

“And I don’t think there’s a thing Congress can do, and that, that is dependent upon Congress getting bills through on appropriations bills that would actually tie the hands of CDC and Kennedy.”

Gottlieb also explained that, “For every 1000 cases of measles that occur in children, there will be one death. And we are not good in this country at diagnosing and treating measles.”

“If you look at the outbreak in Ohio, 30% of the kids were hospitalized, you look at the outbreak in Minnesota, 20% were hospitalized, because we don’t diagnose it quickly, because doctors lost the ability to diagnose it because doctors aren’t accustomed to seeing it, and we don’t know how to manage it in the healthcare system.”

Gottlieb also spent time attempting to distance Trump from RFK Jr.’s anticipated actions.

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“I don’t think that these these policies, uh, efforts, reflect [Trump’s] views,” he said. “I don’t think the president wants to see a resurgence of measles, wants to see a resurgence of whooping cough in his country. God forbid we have cases of polio in this country. He does not want to see that. I think he understood the importance of the child immunization schedule.”

“I’m not so sure that people really understand how Kennedy’s intentions are gonna translate into policy and how serious he is.”

In addition to RFK Jr., Gottlieb also warned about Trump’s nominee to head the CDC, Dr. Dave Weldon, who “is very committed to this, too.”

NBC News reports Dr. Weldon “pushed a false claim that thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines, is linked to autism, and advocated for limits on abortion.”

“Remember,” Gottlieb told CNBC, Weldon, “is someone who’s a very committed anti-vaxxer. I don’t say that in a pejorative way. I think he would own that label very proudly. He was a congressman when I was at FDA in the early 2000s. He sponsored multiple bills to withdraw the current MMR vaccine. He sponsored bills to do away with the liability protection that allows companies to bring these vaccines onto the market.”

Watch the video below or at this link.