After meeting with Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville suddenly believes that babies are the recipients of too many vaccinations.
“Well, what I was excited to hear him about is get away from guessing and do facts, do science. Get behind the science and stay with it. Don’t be guessing, and that’s what a lot of these vaccines have done,” Tuberville told reporters, seemingly missing the part where Kennedy is overtly questioning hundreds of thoroughly researched and well-vetted vaccine studies.
“If you look at the number of vaccines these young babies get over a short period of time, it’s dozens and dozens of ’em, and he’s totally against that,” Tuberville said.
After meeting with RFK Jr., Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) says babies get too many vaccines outside of TB, polio and smallpox and says "everybody in this group has lost somebody ... possibly from the [COVID] vaccine that were perfectly healthy." pic.twitter.com/1wNTepBu3s
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) December 17, 2024
Those “dozens” of early-age shots include vaccines for devastating illnesses that the United States, through immunization and its end goal of herd immunity, has largely nixed out of everyday life, such as polio, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, rubella, and chicken pox.
Kennedy is currently courting lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of what will likely be a difficult Senate confirmation process, given his raucous lifestyle that included dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park; unscientific beliefs, such as theories that AIDS is not caused by HIV; a vaccine misinformation campaign sparked by his nonprofit that sent Samoa’s vaccination rate plummeting amid a measles outbreak; and claims that he allegedly groped his children’s babysitter in the late 1990s.
He’ll also have to convince lawmakers that his agenda—which opposes vaccine mandates for school-age children and includes appointing someone who has filed a petition with the FDA to end the approval and “pause distribution” of 13 vaccines—isn’t at odds with the future of America’s health.
Last week, Donald Trump announced that Kennedy would spend his time at the top of HHS researching an already thoroughly debunked conspiracy that ties vaccine usage to autism rates.
The researcher that sparked that myth with a fraudulent paper lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies have proven there’s no correlation between autism and the jab, including one study that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years.
The virulent conspiracy theorist reportedly only has 18 lawmakers clearly favoring his nomination, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. That’s the same as the number of lawmakers who oppose him, leaving 64 lawmakers still undecided on Kennedy’s future in Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration.
Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have practically eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that these viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat for the average, health-conscious individual.