Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Leader who once survived polio, has issued a warning to the U.S. president-elect’s nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary after a report that was published by The New York Times.
According to the report, it was revealed that Aaron Siri, a top adviser to Robert F. Kennedy, had written a petition to revoke the approval of many vaccines, one of which is the polio vaccine.
The Senate Republican Leader condemns the attempt to undermine the trust that has been placed in vaccines, giving kudos to modern medicine and the polio vaccine for their efforts in saving lives, including his own.
“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said.
It was reported in The New York Times that Siri, through the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), wrote a petition years ago to demand that the FDA withdraw their approval of Sanofi Pasteur’s IPOL polio vaccine.
“ICAN’s petition, filed in 2022, makes the reasonable request that the FDA, as required by federal law, require a proper clinical trial for IPOL prior to licensure,” Siri posted on X.
The Health and Human Services secretary nominee distanced himself from the call for the vaccine’s withdrawal but stated the need to further studies and also resigned as the chair of Children’s Health Defense, a conglomeration of people popular for spreading vaccine misinformation.
Robert Kennedy Jr. will be in charge of vaccine regulation when he is confirmed, which has raised concerns from all parties.
In his comment, Siri confirmed and defended his petition as being true, while the FDA has not worked on his petition, affirming the safety of polio vaccines. His confirmation could affect vaccine policies in the future.
