A letter from polio in support of RFK Jr., co-signed by natural selection | Opinion

I have received a copy of the following letter from the highly contagious viral disease polio, written to members of the U.S. Senate who will be considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In the public interest, I share it here in full.

A letter from polio endorsing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head HHS

To Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate:

I write you today to offer my full and feverish support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his nomination to become head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

I believe Mr. Kennedy will fulfill President-elect Donald Trump’s mission of making America great again, not only for its people but also for largely eradicated communicable diseases like myself.

As you know, Mr. Kennedy has long been an advocate for preventable diseases and an outspoken critic of vaccines. I have lost most of my strain to vaccines, and have been forced to live host-less my entire life, so this issue is deeply personal to me and the polio community I represent.

As The New York Times recently reported: “The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.”

While I strongly disagree with the latter part of that sentence and will be suing The Times for defamation, the first part is both spot-on and encouraging. Aaron Siri is a fierce ally to all infectious diseases, having, as The Times reported, “filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, Covid vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions.”

This is exactly the kind of person whom I and those who have signed on to this letter ? including measles, mumps, rubella, influenza and, of course, natural selection ? would like to see in charge of America’s health.

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President-elect Trump has said that he will listen to Mr. Kennedy’s advice on vaccines, recently telling Time magazine that he wants “very serious testing,” and that he will eliminate any vaccine “if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial.”

This is the best news we have heard since 1789, when British Dr. Michael Underwood gave the first-known description of polio as “debility of the lower extremities.” That is when we knew we had arrived.

We thrived until the mid-1950s, when Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine against us. It was a dark day, and things have been terrible for our community ever since.

While we recognize our own bias in supporting Mr. Kennedy, we also acknowledge the concerns among educated humans relating to our past disease behavior.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Mr. Kennedy would oversee if confirmed, says that I and others in the polio community are “a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person and can infect a person’s brain and/or spinal cord, causing paralysis.”

We are not proud of the death and paralysis our ancestors caused, but we assure you we have changed.

If you confirm Mr. Kennedy and he does away with vaccines and vaccine requirements, we in the polio community and others in the broader communicable disease cluster pledge we will never enter your bodies and begin replicating in your cells with the intent to cause harm.

Really, we are just looking for a warm place to live. There would be no cause for concern, and any associated sweating, fatigue, nausea, body aches or partial paralysis would be wholly unrelated to our presence. Any widespread and easily preventable deaths or global pandemics would likely be the fault of so-called scientists and could be easily treated with some form of veterinary medication that may or may not cause death.

We promise.

For far too long, we have been denied our chance at the American dream. Mr. Kennedy is our last best hope, and we beg you to confirm him with great haste.

Also, if you touched this letter you may want to wash your hands.

Most sincerely,

— polio, measles, tetanus, smallpox, influenza, mumps, hepatitis B, chickenpox, rubella, COVID-19 and natural selection

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kennedy could end polio vaccine? Great news for disease! | Opinion