America has spoken. The election is over. Donald J. Trump is the former and future President of the United States, and his transition team is already drafting the transformation of America into a different form from that which we have been accustomed to over the past several decades. The people have chosen him with the assurance that he will evict tens of millions of people from the United States who may have come here illegally, but exactly how that process will not include thousands, if not in fact millions, of people who are here legally has yet to be described. He also promises to increase tariffs and lower inflation, but raising tariffs invariably increases the cost of goods, and consequently one would expect this measure would fuel inflation.
Most relevant to healthcare professionals are the changes that he proposes for the rules and regulations governing what physicians and patients may have access to or may do. The most dramatic change he has proposed is the installation of Robert F Kennedy Jr. as the overseer of America’s healthcare systems. Mr. Kennedy has no tangible experience or expertise in healthcare, but he has very strong opinions concerning current practices.
One of the most notable of the issues he plans to take up is the application of vaccines throughout our country. He has discussed amongst other things simply eliminating government indemnification of vaccine manufacturers. This would effectively eliminate the availability of vaccines since vaccines will only work if they are distributed to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people and the liability facing any company providing such large coverage would be unworkable even if none of the claims against the companies was successful. The litigation costs alone would bankrupt most vaccine manufacturers.
Mr. Kennedy has also focused on fluoride in our water supplies. Although it was established many decades ago that fluoridation radically reduced tooth decay and had no substantial adverse effects at levels recommended by the federal government, Mr. Kennedy has decided that we should view fluoride as a poison that reduces the IQs of the people exposed to it and that we should ban this additive. The bases for his opinions are best characterized as rumors, rather than scientific facts or even widely-held misconceptions. He appears to be unaware that tooth decay itself poses numerous dangers to the public health and that it is a common source of infections that spread throughout the body and cause increased morbidity and mortality in the general population.
Mr. Kennedy has also suggested that we pursue a national ban, independent of that already active in nearly half of the states in the United States, on abortions being performed after 13 weeks from conception. His boss, Mr. Trump, has made it clear during his first administration that he supported bans on abortion throughout the country and took the first steps toward accomplishing this by choosing Supreme Court justices who, during their congressional hearings, insisted that Roe v. Wade was “established law” but decided once they were approved as Supreme Court justices that “established law” need not be very established.
During the first Trump administration, we suffered through a COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in the deaths of more than a million Americans and permanent disability for several million Americans. During that public health disaster, we at least had the benefit of some intelligent and experienced people in the government, people like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who resisted the adoption of nonsensical policies and remedies. In the second Trump administration there will be no one with the audacity to argue for rational medical interventions if there is another pandemic or other type of healthcare crisis. Apparently, Mr. Kennedy will have the final word directing the healthcare resources of America, despite his clinging to antiquated and debunked medical myths.
The Republican majority in the Senate, along with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, will undoubtedly reject Obamacare and take us back to a healthcare system that provides little or no coverage for people with little or no resources. This will result in millions of people, both citizens and illegal immigrants, who will not have access to healthcare and who will be a source of communicable diseases that will infect and affect all of the people living in the United States, regardless of their citizenship status. We can expect to see our most vulnerable friends and relatives, our children and the elderly, succumb to lethal and crippling illnesses, like measles, polio, tetanus, whooping cough, etc., as people chosen for their ‘loyalty’ to the new President decide what physicians, patients, and hospitals may do. We should be afraid, very afraid.
Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the U.S., as well as in England, Germany, and France.
