Experts are worried about how President-elect Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy as Health and Human Services secretary will affect vaccination rates for school children, which have been on the decline.

Schools have seen a drop in childhood vaccinations since the COVID-19 pandemic, when critics of the COVID-19 vaccines increased anti-vaccine sentiments in general.

Public health groups see vaccines as a huge bulwark against disease and fear Kennedy will only increase skepticism if he is confirmed.

“The reason we think Mr. Kennedy is the wrong guy for the Secretary of Health and Human Services is we do not think that somebody who has been the source of so much death and disability amongst the nation's children should have any seed of prominence in the health world,” said Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Trump has suggested he could at least consider ending some childhood vaccination programs.

“We're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it,” Trump told Time magazine when asked about ending certain vaccines programs.

While autism diagnoses are on the rise, claims that vaccines cause autism have been debunked by the medical community. Health experts have explored other reasons for the increase in autism diagnosis, such as changes to diagnostic criteria.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who said back in 2023 that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” He also created an anti-vaccine group called the Children’s Health Defense.

Public health groups say a move against vaccines could be a danger for school children.

“Kids are coming together often for the first time in places like daycares and in schools and these are diseases that........

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