Vaccine stocks drop as RFK Jr named US health secretary

RFK Jr speaks with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump — (Image credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Image)

Shares in big vaccine producers have slumped since Donald Trump asked Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, says The New York Times. Kennedy, known for his “divisive” views on public health, including “scepticism” about vaccines (as well as pesticides and water fluoridation) is to lead “a huge department… whose regulations affect America’s food and medicine choices”.

How could RFK Jr impact the US healthcare industry?

Ironically, picking such a well-known vaccine sceptic may be a form of “political retribution” by Trump, who claims that the vaccine makers “sat on positive Covid jab test results until after he had lost the [2020] election”, says the Daily Telegraph. He furthermore accused the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is also likely to be in Kennedy’s crosshairs, of not wanting to give him a “vaccine win prior to the election”.

Installing RFK Jr in an official administration role “may be difficult”, as his anti-vax views have been so extreme that they led to bans on YouTube and Instagram, says Robert Cyran on Breakingviews. That “might preclude confirmation even in a Republican-led Senate”.

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However, even if he only ends up serving as a senior advisor, it would still give him “plenty of scope to target the pharmaceutical and related industries”. While RFK has said in interviews that “he wouldn’t take away anyone’s vaccines”, he reportedly wants to remove product liability protection from vaccines, a step that might have a “similarly harmful effect”.

Whatever role Kennedy eventually plays, even his presence within the administration could “erode public trust” in vaccines, “put up roadblocks to the approval of new vaccines and prevent the CDC from recommending any vaccines that make it through the approval process”, says Morningstar’s Karen Andersen. This, in turn, could mean that certain US states could “waver” in support of broad mandates for childhood vaccines. Still, any reduction in projected US vaccine sales would not be “long-lasting”, and so this should not provide “a significant hit” to drug companies’ valuations.

The industry hopes that RFK’s influence may be cancelled out by other “smart people” advising Trump, say Ian Johnston and Oliver Barnes in the Financial Times. They could restrain RFK, while there may be increased benefits from the stockpiling of certain vaccines for defence purposes.

Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed alongside Elon Musk to oversee a state efficiency drive, has also been a big fan of reducing red tape in the drug approval process, accusing the FDA of erecting “unnecessary barriers to innovation”.

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