Howard Lutnick, the head of the team planning former President Donald J. Trump’s potential White House transition, said on Wednesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had convinced him to embrace Mr. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine claims, which have been widely debunked.
Mr. Trump has indicated that he might give Mr. Kennedy a position in his administration if he wins the election, something that could have profound implications for public health policy.
In an interview on CNN, Mr. Lutnick said he had spoken with Mr. Kennedy for two and a half hours this week, and repeated the false claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. That claim, usually proffered in relation to a vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, stems from a 1998 study that was discredited and retracted.
He described Mr. Kennedy suggesting that vaccines had become unsafe because of a 1986 law shielding manufacturers from civil liability.
That law created a federal program to compensate people for adverse effects — which are very rare — as an alternative to liability for manufacturers. It did not change anything about safety and approval requirements for vaccines, which are extensively tested and must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. Lutnick, seemingly dismissing the testing and approval requirements, asked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “Why do you think vaccines are safe? There’s no product liability anymore.”
He also repeated a common anti-vaccine talking point that some vaccines might be safe, but children receive too many. The number of vaccines in the recommended schedule has increased as new vaccines have been developed and shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective, and as researchers and public health officials have determined the optimal number of doses. But vaccines have been streamlined over the same period, meaning that even as the number of shots has increased, the amount of antigens they contain has significantly decreased.
Ms. Collins pushed back on Mr. Lutnick, emphasizing that vaccines are tested for safety, but he doubled down.
The Trump campaign denied a recent statement from Mr. Kennedy that he had been promised “control” of government health agencies, and in the CNN interview, Mr. Lutnick dismissed a suggestion that Mr. Kennedy would lead the Department of Health and Human Services. But he made clear that Mr. Kennedy’s views were likely to be influential in a Trump administration.
Mr. Lutnick said Mr. Kennedy wanted access to data on vaccine safety — implying baselessly that it was being hidden — so he could prove vaccines were dangerous and compel companies to recall them.
“He wants the data so he can say these things are unsafe,” Mr. Lutnick said. “He says if you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the markets.”
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