There was an interesting exchange between President-Elect Donald Trump’s physician, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members of the media on Sunday concerning his belief that there may be links between autism and vaccinations. Dr. Fauci said that while he had not seen evidence of a vaccine-autism connection, there were reasons to be cautious about giving children too many vaccinations. He went as far as to say that the current autism statistics were probably lower than the real figure because of under-reporting. (Vaccinations for some neurological disorders have been known to cause false reporting.)
President-elect Donald Trump also has an opinion on the matter. In a tweet on Sunday, he wrote, “Many people are wondering why the CDC will not use video cameras on buses and stop them from walking around with guns? Looks like another gun-toting lunatic trying to hide something.” He went on to tweet that he believed it would be a good idea to arm school officials with pepper spray if they did not want to protect the students, teachers and faculty from possible shooters:
The CDC is an independent agency. Unlike the presidential administration, the CDC cannot be controlled by any particular political party. It is an independent organization whose budget comes from Congress, not the president. Therefore, it is not surprising that the President-elect is tweeting about the pending study involving schools using guns to combat school shootings. Many reporters have tried to get the President-elect to comment on the studies, but so far, he has not offered his own opinion.
Another tweet issued by the President-elect on Sunday brought up a question about why school officials should be concerned about preventing mass shootings. The tweeter stated; “But how do you stop a crazy person from shooting up a school or college, or even a public arena? Likewise, the CDC knows what they’re doing when it comes to preventing these things. Think on that, which I am sure is in line with what the CDC is now recommending.”
The CDC is recommending that school systems implement “smart gun technology”. Smart guns use biometric fingerprint technology to prevent potential shooters from randomly picking a gun. Biometric technology means that only certain people will pick up the gun, and they won’t because of who the gun has marked as a trigger. The president-elect called the biometric technology “smart technology” on MONDAY, MARTIN’S FOX CHANNEL (emphasis added). CNS News has more on this story here.
On Monday evening, the CDC released the names of the people involved in the San Bernardino shooting. No arrests have been made, and no charges have yet been filed against the couple. The press release from the CDC says that all of the testing done on the devices has been passed, by the American College of Medical Specialists. The test results were a “yes” for all seven items, the first test was a “tested negative”, meaning that the device was ineffective, the second was a “tested positive”, meaning that the device did function to stop a potential shooter from accidentally shooting a person.