Dear Dr. Makary,
I am sure you read the same news that we did. According to the article RFK Jr. Key Adviser Petitioned Regulators to Revoke Approval of Polio Vaccine:
A key legal adviser to Robert Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary, is at the center of efforts to push federal drug regulators to revoke approval for the polio and hepatitis B vaccines and block distribution of 13 other critical vaccines.
Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has been helping Kennedy select top health administrators as part of the Trump transition process, is deeply embedded in longstanding efforts to force the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withdraw a raft of vaccines that have saved the lives and health of millions of Americans.
This is quite the pickle for you, isn’t it? You spent the past few years cozying up to all the right people and dutifully spouting the party misinformation about masks and COVID vaccines. Despite being an examplar of the medical establishment, you railed against the “medical establishment” as if you were a neutral outsider. You told the public that RFK Jr. really cared about “chronic disease” and that his anti-vaxx disinformation was “100% true.“
Embracing such groupthink was required for you get noticed, and your willingness to sublimate independent thought for the sake of power paid off. You are likely going to be head of the FDA. You’ll be famous and have enormous influence, which is everything you wanted. But your reward came with a poison chalice- your boss will be a total anti-vaxx crank.
Maybe you imagine you can reason with RFK Jr. and get him to ignore vaccines or even support some of them. That’s a fool’s errand. Opposing vaccines has been his obsession for 20 years. Sure, he might “study” them first, but when he “discovers” that they cause autism, his next steps are obvious. He’ll spread misinformation about vital vaccines and he’ll target them in every way he can. This is the guy behind Vaxxed 3: Authorized to Kill, after all.
So what are you going to do if RFK Jr. demands that you revoke approval for vaccines, which you know are safe and effective?
You know that if you resist RFK Jr.- as I hope and suggest you do– you might be fired. Everything you’ve worked for will be gone. Those Fox News appearances, where you embarrassed yourself declaring we had herd immunity in May 2021, will be for naught.
Unfortunately, I am not confident you’ll do the right thing. First, you spread copious misinformation about COVID and I haven’t seen you acknowledge you were wrong about any of it. Second, you have not yet put out a statement that the MMR, HPV, polio, and other routine vaccines are safe and effective and that you would protect them if you were confirmed to head the FDA.
Why not?
I suspect that if you capitulate to RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine demands, you’ll forever be known as the doctor who helped revive long-vanquished diseases. Nothing else about you will matter. Children will suffer and die, and their grieving parents will be all over the news. History books will rightfully treat you as the anti-Jonas Salk, and medical students will learn about you as a cautionary tale.
Hopefully a miracle will happen and RFK Jr. will leave vaccines alone. But if he goes after vaccines, I wish you success keeping them safe from him the next 4 years. We’ll all be watching. The time to start speaking out is now.