Donald Trump is clearly leading in the polls for the Republican Presidential primary and Mr Trump gets enormous amounts of media attention and is a warehouse of quotes.

Here I’ve compiled a list of quotes by Mr Trump related to various areas of health care and medicine, let’s take a look:

Vaccines

Mr Trump has historically been a proponent of the vaccine-autism link theory (this may have changed as many of his position have “evolved” recently), here is some of what he said:

Via Twitter:

“If I were President I would push for proper vaccinations but would not allow one time massive shots that a small child cannot take – AUTISM.”

“To all haters and losers: I am NOT anti-vaccine, but I am against shooting massive doses into tiny children. Spread shots out over time.”.

“No more massive injections. Tiny children are not horses—one vaccine at a time, over time.”

“I am being proven right about massive vaccinations—the doctors lied. Save our children & their future.”

Via TV interviews:

Via Radio:

On the Hugh Hewitt radio show in February Mr Trump said:

Hugh Hewitt: And it goes to a tweet that you put out. I love the fact that you tweet your own stuff. You wrote massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for a big increase in autism. Spread shots over a long period, and watchpositive result. Do you stand by that, Donald Trump?

Image/Donkeyhotey
Image/Donkeyhotey

Donald Trump: Okay, I do, and let me explain it real quickly. I am a total believer in getting the shots and having it done, and I am a total believer, 100%, nobody a bigger believer. What I don’t like seeing is that 20 pound little baby going in and having this one massive inoculation with all of these things combined. I’d like it spread over, because look, our autism rate is at a level that it’s never been. Nobody’s ever, you know, in the old days, you didn’t even hear about autism, and now it’s at a level that’s so high, especially in boys, but so high that nobody can even believe it. What I’m saying is 100% I want to see it happen. I want everybody, but it should be spread over. Smaller doses over a longer period of time. So spread it out over a year. There’s no harm in that, and I believe autism will go way down.

HH: So you’re saying there’s a causalconnection…

DT: I totally believe, but I would like to see it spread out and in smaller doses.

HH: So you believe there’s a causal connection between vaccines and autism?

DT: Well, a lot of people do. I mean, there are many people that do. And I know at least two people, one of them who works in the building that I’m in right now, a beautiful woman, has a child. The child is 100% healthy, takes the child, who was I think around a year and a half or two years old to get the shot, gets this massive shot of fluid pumped into the baby’s body, and a few days later, catches a fever, and all of a sudden, is severely autistic. And many people, many people have had that experience, Hugh. And I will tell you, on Twitter and on Facebook, where you know, so many people, I feel, it’s sort of interesting, because I get so much response, people are praying for me that I at least say that. So I totally believe in the shot. I totally believe that you should be vaccinated. But let them spread it out over a little period of time. You can’t pump that, because have you ever seen the size of these inoculations? You can’t pump that much fluid into a little baby’s body. And I think it’s having an effect. And I know of at least two cases in my, but many people say the same thing happened to me where their child is totally healthy. They get pumped up with this huge pile of liquid, with many, many different vaccines, and their child turns out to be autistic after it. And all I’m saying is spread it out in smaller doses over a longer period of time.

HH: If a group of scientists came to you and said look, The Donald, that’s just, that’s not right, you’re giving out misinformation, would you change your mind if presented with facts on that?

DT: Well, I’ve seen babies that were totally healthy that weren’t healthy, and I’m not asking for anything. All I’m doing is saying spread it out over a period of time. I’m not saying don’t get inoculated, don’t get the shots, don’t get the vaccines. I’m saying spread it out over a period of time. It doesn’t hurt anybody other than probably the pharmaceutical companies, because they probably make more money putting it into one shot. Maybe it hurts the doctors. I don’t know. But I can say this. Everybody would get the vaccines. They just, they wouldn’t be pumping these massive amounts of liquid into a child.

After the interview, Mr Hewitt expressed his views on this topic saying the science shows there is no link.

Ebola

Donald Trump was a vocal opponent of treating Americans who contracted Ebola Virus Disease here in the US.

Via Twitter:

“Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days – now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!”

“Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

“The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!”

and here is what filovirus expert Trump had to say about the transmissability of Ebola:

“Ebola is much easier to transmit than the CDC and government representatives are admitting. Spreading all over Africa-and fast. Stop flights”

Universal Health Care

Not only did Donald Trump praise the single payer health system during the first debate (which few commented on), but when he was considering running for the Reform Party nomination in 2000, he said this:

I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on health. It is an unacceptable but accurate fact that the number of uninsured Americans has risen to 42 million. Working out detailed plans will take time. But the goal should be clear: Our people are our greatest asset. We must take care of our own. We must have universal healthcare.”

“The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees. If the program were in place in Massachusetts in 1999 it would have reduced administrative costs by $2.5 million. We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing.”

 

Robert Herriman is a microbiologist and the Editor-in-Chief of Outbreak News Today

Follow @bactiman63

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