US is taking step back in science with Kennedy Jnr

Even as Donald Trump’s supporters were going into raptures about his appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jnr, a longtime conspiracy theorist and vaccine opponent, as his new health supremo, the World Health Organisation was announcing that, globally, measles cases had soared by 20% to more than 10 million.

South African conservative fans of Trump probably don’t know that RFK Jnr was part of an anti-vaxx group which spread its message in Samoa, shortly before an outbreak of measles there in 2019, which caused the deaths of 80 children, whose parents swallowed the anti-vaxx propaganda and didn’t get their kids jabbed.

That’s what US voters may, or may not, have voted for when they put their crosses against Trump’s name on the ballot paper.

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Some may have been pushing back against a perceived “wokeness” among the Democratic Party, including its liberal views on issues like transgenderism, critical race theory and immigrants. Some may have wanted better economic times.

But what they got, with Trump’s political caravan, though, was his groupies with extreme views, including those who believe the myriad anti-vaxx conspiracies and that “the elite” is trying to poison humanity and reduce the population by spraying toxic chemicals into the atmosphere from aircraft.

Kennedy himself has promised that Trump would address the “chemtrails” issue.

Now that Kennedy has the opportunity to “Make America Healthy Again”, he can pursue his crusade against unhealthy food – and few people would argue with that.

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But he has also promised to crack down on pharmaceutical companies and review vaccinations.

That could, experts fear, open the way for a resurgence in diseases like measles, polio and whooping cough, which can be deadly to unvaccinated infants.

Pushing back against science looks to be one of the motivations of Team Trump – so perhaps the US is heading into a new Dark Age of ignorance.