McConnell slams polio vaccine critics in apparent warning to RFK Jr.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Republican leader and a polio survivor, issued a strong statement defending the polio vaccine Friday after reports that Robert F. Kennedy’s lawyer once tried to get the vaccine’s approval revoked.
"Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous," McConnell said.
McConnell’s statement Friday came after a New York Times report revealed that Aaron Siri, Kennedy’s lawyer, petitioned the FDA in 2022 to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine. Siri has been alongside Kennedy – President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services – as he interviews candidates for top health positions.
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McConnell didn’t explicitly name Siri or Kennedy, but he did imply that anti-vaccine views could tank anyone’s chances of getting confirmed by the Senate.
Mitch McConnell’s boyhood polio
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell walks to his office at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. McConnell survived polio as a child, but the lingering effects are with him to this day. (Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomber
McConnell contracted polio when he was a small child, years before the vaccine was widely available, according to The Associated Press. The disease left his left leg paralyzed. He eventually recovered after two years of treatments at the same center in Georgia where then-President Franklin Roosevelt received polio care. But the lingering effects of polio still impact him to this day. McConnell has a wobbly, uneven gait and has trouble climbing stairs.
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"From the age of two, normal life without paralysis was only possible for me because of the miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love. But for millions who came after me, the real miracle was the saving power of the polio vaccine," McConnell said in his statement. "Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
What is polio?
Polio outbreak in Gaza: new vaccination campaign
A polio case was reported in Gaza for the first time in 25 years. A 10-month-old boy contracted the disease, and is now paralyzed in the leg. The U.N. health agency is launching a vaccination campaign on Sunday. The goal is to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease expert, joins LiveNOW from FOX to explain the dangers of the disease, and the importance of the vaccinations.
Polio is a highly infectious disease, mostly affecting young children. It attacks the nervous system and can lead to spinal and respiratory paralysis, and in some cases death, according to the World Health Organization.
A major outbreak in New York City in 1916 killed more than 2,000 people. The nation’s worst outbreak in 1952 claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Many who survived the disease were left with lifelong impacts and needed leg braces, crutches or wheelchairs. Some had to use the iron lung, an artificial respirator designed to treat polio patients.
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By 1950, polio was killing or paralyzing more than 500,000 people a year.
Dr. Jonas Salk created the first successful polio vaccine in 1953, eventually leading to mass vaccination campaigns around the world. Although polio has not been completely eradicated, cases have decreased by more than 99%, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
RFK's anti-vaccine views
Kennedy has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. He has also pushed other conspiracy theories, such as that COVID-19 could have been "ethnically targeted" to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, comments he later said were taken out of context. He has repeatedly brought up the Holocaust when discussing vaccines and public health mandates.
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Kennedy has insisted he is not anti-vaccine, saying he only wants vaccines to be rigorously tested, but he also has shown opposition to a wide range of immunizations. Kennedy said in a 2023 podcast interview that "There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective." In a 2021 podcast he urged people to "resist" CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.
No medical intervention is risk-free. But doctors and researchers have proven that risks from disease are generally far greater than the risks from vaccines.
If confirmed by the Senate, Kennedy will control the world’s largest public health agency, and its $1.7 trillion budget.