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Republican vice presidential hopeful JD Vance echoed some of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s theories on health during a campaign rally on Tuesday in Michigan.
Kennedy, a former Democratic and Independent presidential candidate who has endorsed former President Donald Trump, is an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who has pushed debunked public health theories. The 70-year-old was still on the ballot in the swing state even after attempting to get himself removed after dropping out.
In Detroit on Tuesday, Vance spoke about clean air and water and claimed that the US uses more antidepressants than other nations. He also mentioned Americans’ struggle with obesity and claimed that “weird childhood diseases” were making a comeback after having been off the scene for decades.
“Does that suggest that we’re putting too much weird stuff in our water? Or too much weird stuff in our food supply?” Vance asked his audience in Michigan, according to The New York Times.
Trump’s running mate went on to praise Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” slogan.
A Vance spokesperson told the paper that the Ohio senator “worries a great deal about the impact processed foods are having on all Americans, including rising rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.”
The vice presidential nominee is also concerned about “the impacts of microplastics and other contaminants in our water,” the spokesperson added.
Kennedy pushed similar ideas during his run for the White House, such as arguing that federal health agencies should be working harder to take aim at chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
He has also often slammed the pharmaceutical industry and regulating agencies and he has shared his worries about chemicals in food, worries which have at times entered the territory of conspiracy theories, such as his baseless claims that vaccinations lead to chronic diseases in children, in addition to autism as well as what he calls other “injuries.”
Kennedy has also made the false claim that antidepressants are connected to school shootings. The former Democrat has argued that a second Trump administration would take action to remove pesticides and other chemicals from the food and water supply.
However, during his first term in the White House, Trump put an end to more than 100 policies protecting the environment, such as bans on chemicals that have been proven to be major health threats, The Times noted.
Vance, for his part, has claimed on the campaign trail that Trump has a record of protecting the environment.
“Of course we believe in protecting our environment,” Vance said in Michigan last month. It was only days later that Trump was in Erie, Pennsylvania where he said that environmental concerns were “one of the greatest scams of all time.”
“Do you ever notice, this was such a big deal, the environmental stuff,” he told rally attendees in late September. “I haven’t heard the environmental stuff mentioned in six months. I was saying the other night – ‘What the hell happened to the environment?’”
“They never talk about the environment anymore. You know why?” he asked.
“It’s one of the greatest scams of all time … people aren’t buying it anymore,” Trump claimed.
