“We’re going to start seeing epidemics of diseases that have long been vanquished, and, God forbid, we see polio reemerge in this country,” he said.
Gottlieb said he had been warning senators against confirming Kennedy to run the federal health department, although he did not identify with whom he had spoken. He added that Kennedy, who founded one of the country’s most prominent antivaccine groups, had “smart people” around him who could take immediate steps to affect Americans’ access to vaccines, such as changing federal vaccine recommendations.
“There’s a lot of things that they could do day one, very easily, administratively,” Gottlieb said.
Reached by The Washington Post, Gottlieb declined to comment.
Gottlieb’s remarks represent an escalation of criticism of Kennedy, whom President-elect Donald Trump has selected to serve as the nation’s top health official. Public heath groups have blasted the selection, saying that Kennedy’s persistent questions and debunked claims about vaccines make him unfit for the role.
“I think the most dangerous thing about the nominee for secretary is his view on vaccines,” Kathleen Sebelius, who served as HHS secretary during the Obama administration, said on CNN last week.
Jerome Adams, who was U.S. surgeon general under Trump, has also warned that Kennedy’s selection could fuel a decline in vaccine confidence and help spark outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.
The Senate is expected to review Kennedy’s nomination early next year. Many Democrats and some Republicans have said they have concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines and his other stances, although they did not rule out supporting him.
“We’ve got a process,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), a physician and incoming chairman of the Senate Health Committee, said last week. Cassidy added that Kennedy would get an opportunity to define his views on vaccines when facing lawmakers.
Kennedy, who threw his support to Trump in August and campaigned on an agenda to “Make America Healthy Again” by focusing on the causes of chronic disease and childhood illness, told reporters this month that he would not “take away” vaccines. The former Democrat and longtime antivaccine activist instead said he wanted to conduct additional safety reviews on vaccines and make that data available.
Public health experts have said vaccines are among the most studied medical interventions in history and that they could not be confident in vaccine data released by Kennedy, given that he has repeatedly invoked claims such as the debunked link between autism and vaccines.
Kennedy’s representatives have previously denied to The Post that he is antivaccine.
Kennedy’s allies have repeatedly criticized Gottlieb, who joined the board of Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company, after leaving the Trump administration in 2019.
“Trust in public health has plummeted due to government officials like Scott going straight from the FDA to the Pfizer boardroom,” Calley Means, an adviser to Kennedy, wrote Friday on social media.
In his CNBC appearance, Gottlieb drew a distinction between Kennedy and Trump, whom Gottlieb said had discussed vaccines with him in Trump’s first term as president.
“I don’t think the president wants to see a resurgence of measles, wants to see a resurgence of whooping cough in this country,” Gottlieb said. “I think he understood the importance of the child immunization schedule.”
Gottlieb also praised other Trump health picks who must be confirmed by the Senate, such as Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer tapped to run the FDA, and Mehmet Oz, a longtime TV physician whom Trump selected to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“I do think Oz could be a transformative pick,” said Gottlieb, adding that Oz’s fame could help him win over older Americans on efforts to improve health and wellness.
But in his remarks, Gottlieb repeatedly warned against Kennedy and his allies, such as Dave Weldon, a physician and former Republican congressman selected to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“He was a congressman when I was at FDA in the early 2000s,” Gottlieb said, listing Weldon’s efforts to pressure federal agencies on their vaccine work. “He is very committed to this, too.”
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