Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a new wave of pressure to step into the breach and derail one of Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet nominees.
According to a report from the New York Times, polio survivors and family members are urging McConnell –– a polio survivor himself –– to stop Trump from successfully handing the job of being his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The report notes that there are over 300,000 survivors in the U.S. of the deadly disease that ravaged the country before Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine halted the spread over 70 years ago.
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Painful memories of that time has led to a pressure campaign on McConnell to do all he can to keep the unqualified Kennedy, a notorious anti-vaxxer, away from the department.
"Mr. Kennedy insisted he was 'all for the polio vaccine' while touring Capitol Hill last month for the customary courtesy meetings with senators. But some of his recent statements suggest otherwise. He has said, for example, that the idea that the vaccine resulted in a drastic decline in polio cases is 'a mythology' that is 'just not true.' He has also asserted that the polio vaccine caused an explosion in soft-tissue cancers that killed more people than polio," wrote the Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
That is where McConnell, a master congressional tactician, comes in.
According to Susan L. Schoenbeck, a polio survivor and author of the book “Polio Girl,” McConnell needs to step up.
“If McConnell fails to speak out on this issue it will undoubtedly stain his legacy,” she told the Times and then added, "I’m not sure the polio survivor community could ever forgive him.”
Brian M. Tiburzi of the non-profit Post Polio Health International agreed and pointed to a previous warning from the Kentucky Republican that the incoming Trump administration needs to stay away from “efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures.”
“I think people were left a little wanting by his original statement,” he lamented. “I think they would have liked him to take a more explicit stand against R.F.K.’s nomination.”
The Times report adds, "As a former leader, Mr. McConnell’s voice carries weight with his fellow Republicans. He will have an opportunity, if he chooses, to speak about Mr. Kennedy’s fitness when the full Senate takes up the nomination. But Mr. McConnell does not serve on either of the two committees — the Senate Health Committee and the Senate Finance Committee — that will hold hearings on Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation. The hearings have not yet been scheduled."
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