This "exploration" could be promising if it leads to tangible outcomes. It's sad that even a glance toward making a reasonable change can simultaneously be the inch taken before the mile and a gotcha asserting [in]competence. These guys are so good at being mind viruses. And it's ironic that potentially positive US food policy changes might come from someone with an anti-vaccine agenda. The frustrating part is that by operating outside of norms he might actually achieve meaningful changes where his predecessors have not. The anti-vaccine position is just baffling, though. Even if we grant their most extreme claims for argument's sake - some autism, autoimmune conditions, or 5G chips in our bloodstream - that society still functions better than one riddled with preventable diseases and populated by people who aggressively resist basic public health measures like masks during outbreaks. This seems like an incredibly disqualifying position for anyone overseeing public health policy.
You cannot say "hopefully his influence there will be limited" while we are actively discussing unannounced cancellations of vaccine studies. His influence there is already overarching, malevolent and clandestine. You'll note that nowhere in his GRAS announcement did he list any examples of GRAS ingredients that have been found to be unsafe, or are suspected to be unsafe. Consumer reports will give you two: - Quorn, which has credibly caused one asthma attack in 20 years - Trans fats, which the FDA ruled weren't GRAS in 2015 The Environmental Working Group came up with three more: - Propylparaben, which has shown to disrupt endocrine systems - BHA, which people have been complaining about for longer than they've been complaining about aspartame - BHT, which has been heavily studied with inconclusive results Meanwhile: That 2014 spike? Here he is: My wife was teaching vaccine safety classes in LA at the time. Big ol' enclaves of unvaccinated kids in Malibu and Ventura. Buncha women surrounded by their friends who all shopped Whole Foods and knew vaccines were unsafe because Robert Kennedy told them so. I used to have to talk to Larry Cook weekly. Why were there 130 cases of measles in California in 2014? RFK. Full stop. Ask them and they'll tell you. But sure. Hooray for reviewing GRAS rules. Except the FDA was already doing that. That table is linked in an August 8 2024 article from NYU Law. GRAS guidelines have been under review since March 2024. So why talk about it now? So that people who hope RFK won't be a public health disaster have something to shout down people who know RFK already is a public health disaster. There's nothing complicated about this. It's how RFK has operated his entire career.