Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a decades-long vaccine conspiracist and AIDS denialist, was confirmed as head of Health and Human Services yesterday. Other nominees are still waiting for their hearings.
First, we’re going to talk about RFK Jr. and what all this means.
But then I want to talk about the nominations for other health agencies that haven’t been confirmed yet.
“He is an anti-vaccine zealot”
Here’s a story about Kennedy and his approach to public health.
In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Samoa with his anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense, meeting with local anti-vaxxers and government officials at a time when the country’s measles vaccine was under attack. Prominent anti-vax voices, including CHD, blamed the vaccine for two infant deaths the prior year, even after the true reason was discovered. Amid the swirling misinformation, vaccine rates plummeted from 60–70 percent to 31 percent.
A few months after RFK Jr.’s visit, measles swept through the freshly vulnerable Pacific island nation, killing 83 Samoans—mostly children. Kennedy doubled down, writing to the Samoan prime minister to question whether a “defective vaccine” was responsible for the outbreak. Even two years later, in 2021, Kennedy called a Samoan anti-vaxxer who had reportedly discouraged people from getting vaccinated during the 2019 crisis a “medical freedom hero.” Kennedy has also insisted for years, against all available scientific evidence, that vaccines cause autism, blaming them for a “holocaust” in the United States.
–Trump Unleashing RFK Jr. on Public Health Would Be a Disaster, The New Republic
In his new role at HHS, Kennedy plans to empty entire departments at agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the food and drug supply, I reported for The New Republic in November.
But that’s not all.
His biggest legacy has been seeding mistrust and fear about vaccines among the American public. He’s recently said vaccines cause autism, a lie that was thoroughly debunked decades ago, and he’s said the Covid vaccine is the “deadliest vaccine ever made” based on, apparently, mortality data from Covid itself. As the nation’s top health official, Kennedy could vastly reduce vaccination rates in this country—and even reduce the availability of the vaccines themselves.
–What RFK Jr’s War on Vaccines Could Look Like, The New Republic
Some news stories have focused on Kennedy’s recent claims that he won’t ban or take away vaccines. But that would be a major departure from the past two decades.
“I can say that Kennedy has been aggressively anti-vaccine for 20 years, that that is where he put his efforts, that is where his heart seems to be, and that is unlikely to change—he is an anti-vaccine zealot and will do what harm he can to the vaccination program,” Dorit Reiss, professor at UC Hastings College of Law, told me for The New Republic two weeks ago. “I certainly expect him to aggressively target vaccines.”
Even at his confirmation hearing, Kennedy wouldn’t disavow misinformation he’s spread about vaccines.
There are other nominees with dubious pasts
Kennedy isn’t the only questionable choice to lead health agencies.
Remember “herd immunity” — the idea that we could protect the vulnerable while letting Covid rip through the population?
Jay Bhattacharya was one of three people who proposed the idea to the Trump White House, and it became the official policy in 2020.
He’s the pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“Choosing Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH signals return to controversial and scientifically questionable health policies,” I wrote for the Guardian in November when he was first nominated.
Then there’s the CDC.
Dave Weldon, the pick to lead CDC, is an OG proponent of the extremely debunked idea that vaccines are related to autism — he tried to introduce legislation on it.
Weldon has proposed breaking off the CDC’s vaccine division into a separate entity.
Anti-vaxxers celebrated his nomination, I wrote in December for the Guardian.
But both Bhattacharya and Weldon still need to go through the confirmation process.
I’ll be watching to see if there’s public pressure against their confirmation.
This is Not a Doctor. I’m Melody Schreiber, a journalist and the editor of What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth.
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Top image: Gage Skidmore
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