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new front has opened in the ideological battle in the United States launched during Donald Trump's second term. After clashes over culture, anti-discrimination policies and free trade, now healthcare policy, and vaccination more specifically, has become the latest target of conspiratorial attacks fueled by distrust of experts, the federal government and scientific facts. The announcement by the top health official in the (Republican-governed) state of Florida on Wednesday, September 3, ending mandatory vaccination for schoolchildren – an obligation he compared to "slavery" – is just the latest manifestation of the terrible anti-vax current stoked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US secretary of health.

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RFK Jr. ramps up attacks on vaccination in the US, creating confusion

A longstanding opponent of vaccination and founder of an activist group that advocates "medical freedom" in the name of "protecting children's health," in May, Kennedy unilaterally removed the Covid-19 vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, much to the dismay of scientific societies.