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at once Anti-vaccine activist and Donald Trump transition team member Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at an event in Arizona late last week that Trump would lay off and replace 600 people at the National Institutes of Health on “day one” of his second term. The NIH is one of the public health institutions that Kennedy hates most, and although he still has no defined role in the new administration, he clearly relishes the opportunity to vow revenge against them.

In the comments made First reported by ABC NewsKennedy said: “We need to move quickly, and we want these people in place on January 20, so that on January 21, 600 people will enter the offices at NIH and 600 people will leave.”

Long an opponent of vaccines, Kennedy has consistently criticized the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies that are part of the basic infrastructure of public health. His The real Anthony Fauci Book-length attack on Fauci, a former NIH director, albeit with a single doctor reviewer It was called “many errors and gross misrepresentations”.

Statements that provide some concrete details about Kennedy’s alignment with Trump the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” agenda came while on stage report At an entrepreneurial event in Scottsdale, there were discussions about Kennedy’s workout routine and his relationship with the once and future president.

Calley Means, who played a role in Kennedy’s independent presidential bid and describes herself as a health care reform activist, sat with him for part of the interview. He described the MAHA movement as “throwing special interest groups and the Deep State out of government” and called the NIH “a party of corruption.”

Kennedy made other eyebrow-raising claims during the interview; for example, he claimed that “pilot studies” showed that anorexia could be treated with “keto diets and other types of diets.”

“NIH will not do these studies because they don’t want to know the source, treatment, or cure for chronic disease,” he said. He also got back on the hobby horse, claiming a link between vaccines and the spread of autism.

“I never saw anyone with autism in my childhood,” Kennedy said. “Never.” He added that men his age (Kennedy is 70) do not have “full-blown autism,” which he describes as “wearing helmets,” “not being potty trained,” and “head banging, twitching, tiptoeing.”

(Experts believe autism was underdiagnosed until recent decades; earliest prevalence not executed Until the 1960s and 70s. Autistic adults have a variety of abilities, and self-advocates for autistics Kennedy Uses offensive and obstructive language To talk about autism: public health experts often say “fully developed” instead of: “deep autism.” Kennedy also still uses the term “Asperger’s”. an outdated expression It refers to a scientist who worked with the Nazis during the Holocaust.)

Kennedy also used his appearance in Scottsdale to continue fawning over Trump, saying the new president “has an air of grandeur around him” for his role in opposing what he called “the globalist project.”

He also spoke critically about his own extended family; criticized the presidential raceand some call it “tragically wrongIt has a history regarding vaccines dating back to 2019. Kennedy said these relatives “were all under this kind of hypnosis” and were “persuaded by this wall of propaganda to return to their own values.”