Billionaire public health advocate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday sharply criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's pick as U.S. secretary of health and human services Anti-vaccination protocol and called on the Senate to reject his bid to guide the country's top health agencies.

“Imagine if RFK Jr. had been in office during Trump’s first term,” Bloomberg said Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington DC

“Would Operation Warp Speed ​​have even happened? And if so, how long would the vaccinations have been delayed? How many fewer people would have received the vaccination? How many more people would have died?”

“All we can say for sure is this: It would have made Covid even deadlier and more economically painful,” he said.

Giving RFK Jr. the ability to steer U.S. health care policy can be “more than dangerous, it would be medical malpractice on a grand scale,” he warned.

The former New York City mayor devoted nearly your complete 19-minute speech to criticizing Kennedy's spread of vaccine disinformation, including his “outrageous.” false claim“ that the Covid-19 vaccine is the “deadliest vaccine ever”.

Bloomberg, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, has long advocated for public health reforms, each as mayor and thru his philanthropic efforts.

RFK Jr. initially ran for president in 2024 as a Democrat, but switched to running as an independent and later dropped out to support Trump.

The campaign of RFK Jr., an environmental lawyer and son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, gave him a outstanding national platform and gave recent impetus to his conspiracy theories about vaccines.

Bloomberg made a direct appeal to U.S. senators in his speech on Tuesday not to verify RFK Jr. to the Cabinet role in the subsequent Trump administration.

“We cannot allow Kennedy or Trump or anyone else to bring unimaginable suffering to the American people,” he said.

Bloomberg expressed hope that Senate Republicans will persuade Trump to reconsider RFK Jr.'s nomination before asking them to comment. But if Trump stands by his decision, then the Senate “has a duty to our entire country, but especially to our children.” Vote no,” he said.

Bloomberg also admonished Democrats who appear poised to let RFK Jr. lead the Department of Health and Human Services due to his opposition to junk food and processed foods.

“We don’t have to choose between someone who supports healthy eating and vaccinations. Americans deserve both,” he said.

Bloomberg noted that he fought for it quite a few restrictions During his term as mayor, he campaigned against unhealthy products and tried, amongst other things, to ban sugary drinks. These fights drew backlash from conservatives and impacted the patron goods industry on the time.

But RFK Jr. has taken an analogous path, endorsing a plan that he says goals to work with Republicans to “make America healthy again.”

Bloomberg praised his own efforts to extend the life expectancy of New Yorkers and praised the investments his philanthropic foundation continues to make to combat diseases akin to diabetes and heart disease.

“But if the federal government backs away from vaccines, all of this progress will be wiped out,” he said, suggesting it could lead on to thousands and thousands of unnecessary deaths.

And if the federal government starts investing in “crazy conspiracy theories,” funding for research into cures for other diseases could decline by years, Bloomberg argued.

“It boggles the mind that the Senate would even consider giving Kennedy any power over American health care policy,” he said.

“Whatever one thinks of his positions on food policy, it is not nearly enough to overcome his resistance to vaccines.”

Enthusiasm for club operations Eli Lilly must be tempered – not less than for now – as Wall Street grapples with the potential of a significant shakeup of health care policy in Washington.

Shares of vaccine makers fell on Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a distinguished vaccine skeptic, to move the Department of Health and Human Services.

Shares fell in the ultimate hour of trading Reports Trump's expected election got here. ModernShares closed down greater than 5% on Thursday Novavax fell by greater than 7% and PfizerShares closed down greater than 2%.

Shares of BioNTechthe German drugmaker, which was co-developing a Covid vaccine with Pfizer, closed greater than 6% lower. British drug manufacturer GSKwhich makes flu shots and several other other vaccines, closed about 2% lower.

Shares of those firms fell further in prolonged trading as Trump confirmed his election in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Health policy experts say a second Trump term could allow Kennedy to sharpen his anti-vaccine rhetoric, which could deter more Americans from receiving Covid shots and routine vaccinations which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented debilitating diseases for a long time.

Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are still recovering from falling Covid vaccination rates within the US which have dented their profits over the past two years.

Kennedy's track record as a vaccine skeptic is extensive. He has a protracted history of constructing misleading and false statements in regards to the safety of vaccines, corresponding to claiming that they’re linked to autism, despite quite a few decades-long studies refuting this link.

Kennedy is the founding father of the nonprofit Children's Health Defense, the country's most well-funded anti-vaccine organization.