Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, said any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees seeking confirmation should “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine. The 82-year-old lawmaker’s statement appeared to be directed at Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after a report that one of his advisors filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022. It was a sign that Kennedy, who has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, could face resistance in the soon-to-be GOP-controlled Senate.
