This is an adapted excerpt from the November 24th Episode of “Velshi”.

Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, his health care team is taking shape.

As director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Trump chose Dr. Dave Weldon, a doctor and former congressman who has promoted the widely debunked and repeatedly proven false claim that vaccines cause autism. The CDC is an agency tasked with preventing disease and making recommendations for vaccinations and immunization schedules.

As Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Trump appointed Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and Fox News contributor who spoke out against Covid vaccination mandates for the general public during the pandemic. The FDA is an agency whose responsibilities include approving vaccines.

As surgeon general, Trump chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a doctor and fellow Fox News contributor who is currently medical director at CityMD, a chain of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey. She specializes in emergency and family medicine.

The president-elect also chose former television doctor Mehmet Oz to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Oz has pushed junk science and debunked medical misinformation throughout his career as a talk show host, including promoting dietary supplements and health advice – much of which is not supported by evidence or scientific studies.

He has promoted weight loss supplements that don’t work, colloidal silver for colds and infections despite there being no evidence of its effectiveness, and promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid, which was later deemed by the medical community to be useless for the treatment of Covid was viewed. Oz has also invested heavily in several healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, some of which are directly linked to the agency he was hired to lead.

Now all of these positions and agencies fall under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HHS, as it is commonly known, manages a budget of over $1.7 trillion per year and sends more money to states than all other domestic agencies combined. HHS employs approximately 85,000 people and plays a major role in promoting health, wellness and disease prevention at home and abroad.

With this in mind, Trump’s choice to lead this important department is, of course, none other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is an environmental lawyer by profession, but has represented anti-vaccination activists over the years. He said just this year that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”

He has also spread a lot of medical misinformation, including several debunked claims linking vaccinations to various medical conditions, including autism. He has suggested that the government remove fluoride from water. He has suggested that people consume raw milk and risk exposure to diseases such as listeria and E. coli. In the recent past, he has urged people to defy CDC guidance.

Kennedy has been vocal about his skepticism about the Covid vaccine and has been linked to conspiracy theories suggesting the pandemic was planned by the government as a means of controlling the public.

Trump chose Kennedy with the promise that he would let him “go wild on health.” And although Kennedy has stated that he will not ban vaccines, he continues to promote distrust in vaccines and the expert-led institutions built to protect us.

He has spread completely false statements that will undermine public trust in our leading medical institutions and will likely discourage people from choosing vaccinations that prevent deadly and debilitating diseases.

Public health programs, particularly disease prevention, work when implemented by the government on a large scale. When the attempt to vaccinate a population against a disease works, it remains largely invisible.

The absence of an outbreak – or the absence of a crisis – is evidence of a successful public health program. Nobody notices when it works because that is the goal. Nothing went wrong. If your public health system is strong, you don’t notice that children don’t get measles, polio, or whooping cough.

For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, just before the measles vaccine was made available to the public, there were more than half a million cases of the disease in the United States, and hundreds of people died from it each year. However, with Americans now routinely vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) during childhood, the Mayo Clinic’s most recent annual count found that only 13 cases of measles were reported in the U.S. in 2020. Diphtheria, smallpox and polio were also eradicated.

Still, the CDC has found that vaccination rates in the United States are declining. Since 2019, childhood vaccination rates have begun to decline. The CDC found that MMR vaccination rates among children fell below the 95% target rate in more than three-quarters of all 50 states last school year.

Last year alone, more than 30 states experienced declines in vaccination rates for all federally mandated vaccines, including MMR, DTaP, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and polio and chickenpox vaccines.

And what do you know, while measles cases are still rare in the United States, they are increasing. About 280 cases of measles have been reported in the country this year. In 2022, the first case of polio in more than a decade occurred in New York state.

Now, as the new Trump administration promises a public health apparatus run by someone who promotes controversial, false or dangerous ideas about public health, it is time for Americans to be clear about what is considered next happens.

Ali Velshi

Ali Velshi is the host of “Velshi,” which airs Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. He won the National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for “How the Wheels Came Off,” a special about the near-collapse of the American auto industry. His work on disabled workers and the Chicago red light camera scandal in 2016 earned him two Emmy Award nominations for news and documentary, in addition to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism reporting.

Sophia Miller contributed.