RFK could be ‘dangerous’ to psychedelics reform as top federal health official by making issue seem ‘kooky,’ Michael Pollan says

Here's an interesting short article about Michael Pollan's take on RFK's Dept of Health & Human Services appointment: "Author Michael Pollan says President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could be “very dangerous” to the psychedelics movement—even though he is a supporter of reform. Pollan, who helped put psychedelics into the mainstream with books like “How to Change Your Mind,” told Politico that he’s concerned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of HHS might pursue federal reform in a way that delegitimizes the science behind substances such as psilocybin. “The fact that someone this high up in this administration is supportive of psychedelic-assisted therapy is encouraging in one way,” he said. “But in another, I think it could be very dangerous to the movement, because if the science of psychedelics gets tangled up with the anti-science agenda around vaccines or fluoride, that could do long-term damage to psychedelics. Pollan is referring to Kennedy’s controversial anti-vaccine views and position that fluoride should not be added to the water supply based on conspiratorial beliefs about its health impacts. “Psychedelics should be approved because the science is good, not because they have a fan in the White House,” he said, adding that while some in the psychedelics community are “fervently hoping” that Kennedy and other pro-reform Trump picks will “force the hand” of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve psychedelics as medicine, “politically, I don’t think that’s a good way to go, long-term.”

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