President-elect Donald Trump answered a number of questions regarding his healthcare agenda during a press conference Monday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Throughout the press conference he defended his nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“I think he’s going to be much less radical than you would think,” Trump said about Kennedy. “I think he’s got a very open mind or I wouldn’t have put him there.”
Several healthcare stocks fell in November shortly after Trump named Kennedy as his pick. Kennedy has previously touted debunked claims linking vaccines to autism and compared vaccination to the Holocaust.
Trump also noted his concerns about the state of health in the country, adding that his administration would investigate several issues, including potential links between pesticide use and mortality rates in the United States compared to other countries. He also mentioned examining a possible connection between childhood vaccinations and autism — a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by scientific research.
However, Trump stated that he does not expect Kennedy to revoke any vaccines, emphasizing that he is personally a “big believer” in the polio vaccine.
“You’re not going to lose the the polio vaccine. That’s not going to happen. I saw what happened with the polio. I have friends that were very much affected by that,” Trump said. “And the moment they took that vaccine, it ended.”
Additionally, Trump stated that his administration would target drug middlemen in an effort to lower prescription drug prices.
A recent report from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability found that drug middlemen, also known as pharmacy-benefit managers (PBMs) are steering patients toward more expensive drugs and limiting where they can get them.
“We’re paying far too much because we’re paying much more than other countries. And we have laws that make it impossible to reduce. And we have a thing called the middlemen,” Trump said. “We’re going to knock out the middleman.”