Scott Gottlieb: I Worry ‘Epidemics of Diseases That Have Long Been Vanquished’ Will Come Back with RFK Jr. In Charge

QUICK: “Meantime, president-elect Donald Trump has made all of his picks for the health-related team. Joining us right now to talk about all of this and what it means to the sector is Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Of course, he’s the former FDA commissioner under the last Trump Administration. He’s also a CNBC contributor. Scott, you’re still a board member at Pfizer as well?”
GOTTLIEB: “That’s right.”
QUICK: “Okay, and a board member at Pfizer. Let’s jump into this. Why Don’t We start with the incoming administration’s choices, because there’s been a lot of consternation, a lot of people who have said, wait a second, with RFK Jr. Heading things up — what do you say, as somebody who served in the last Trump Administration?”
GOTTLIEB: “Look, I have deep concerns about Kennedy’s stated intentions to roll back core public health protections, particularly as it relates to childhood vaccines. He’s brought in a very experienced team, a lot of lawyers from the Children’s Defense Fund, which is his anti-vax organization. These guys are capable. I think they’re deadly serious and have been very clear about their intentions. I think sometimes you have to take people at their word. And just to sort of level-set where we are right now, we had 5,000 cases of pertussis last year, we will have 30,000 cases this year. Pregnant women, for the first time in a very long time, now have to think about pertussis as a risk to pregnancy. And if you look at vaccination rates for MMR, there are states that really are at the tipping point in terms of reduced vaccination rates. Herd immunity is achieved at a level of about 95% coverage. If you look at Idaho, it’s at 79%. You look Alaska and Wisconsin, 84%. Minnesota, 87%. Florida, Colorado, Oklahoma, Georgia and Utah at 88%. When I was at FDA in 2018 and 2019, all those states were in the low 90s. If we lose another 5%, we’ll be in a position where we see distributed outbreaks of measles. That could easily happen in the next few years.”
QUICK: “MMR, measles, mumps, rubella — pertussis is whooping cough?”
GOTTLIEB: “Whooping cough.”
QUICK: “So, you’re a physician. What do you worry about? What do you see?”
GOTTLIEB: “Well, what I worry about is we’re at a tipping point, we’re going to start to see epidemics of diseases that have long been vanquished. And God forbid we see polio reemerge in this country. This could happen in the next four years, especially with MMR. The measles vaccination rates have dipped to a point where we are at a tipping point right now. Another 5% down and we’ll be there.”