Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday cheered anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the nation’s top public health agency, highlighting the controversial nominee’s stances on “big pharma” and “corporate ag.”
Polis, a Democrat, faced quick pushback on social media and posted again an hour after the original comment to clarify his thoughts.
President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Kennedy to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy initially sought the Democratic nomination for president, then ran as an independent. A member of the dynastic Kennedy family, he later abandoned his presidential campaign and backed Trump.
Kennedy has pushed a number of public health conspiracies, most prominently around vaccines, and advocated other positions that are generally out of the mainstream, such as the availability of unpasteurized milk. He has said he wants to remove fluoride from the American water supply, based on sometimes-debunked beliefs about the chemical. When he was running for president, he said he wanted to pause research into pharmaceuticals and infectious diseases for at least eight years.
He has also adopted some mainstream health positions, such as limiting ultra-processed foods and the use of pesticides in growing crops.
Polis, citing specific quotes by Kennedy, focused on the latter in a post on the social platform X.
“‘In some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA that are — that have to go, that are not doing their job, they’re not protecting our kids,” Polis quoted Kennedy as saying, then added himself: “YES! The entire nutrition regime is dominated by big corporate ag rather than human health and they do more harm than good.”
Polis acknowledged Kennedy’s anti-vaccine positions and even credited that Kennedy “helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019.” He was referring to a defeated legislative measure that would have made it harder for parents to opt out of vaccine mandates for public schools.
Polis — who previously responded to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stances with a post saying, “(I’m) not sure how bringing back Measles and bringing back Polio makes anyone more healthy…” — added Thursday that he hoped Kennedy would make it a matter of choice, and not about bans or requirements.
“I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health,” Polis wrote on Thursday.
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After Polis faced pushback, including from several state lawmakers, he added an addendum defending vaccine access and science as a cornerstone to any public health policy.
“Science must remain THE cornerstone of our nation’s health policy and the science-backed decision to get vaccinated improves public health and safety,” Polis wrote. “But if as a country we follow the science we would also be far more concerned about the impact of pesticides on public health, ag policy on nutrition, and the lack of access to prescription drugs due to drug high prices.”
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