Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, inexplicably advances conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and disinformation on public health issues. He legitimizes fringe perspectives and pseudoscience. He appears ignorant of facts, naïve about effective public health strategies, and frequently disingenuous.
Kennedy repeatedly magnifies, misrepresents, and twists facts to support his position. His conclusions on research studies often extend well beyond what the data indicate.
He has some valid concerns – environmental pollution, high chronic disease rates, ultra-processed foods, toxins, and food additives including dyes. But Kennedy’s promotion of good nutrition as his strategy against obesity and other maladies is overly simplistic and naïve.
His opposition to prescription fluoride supplements and fluoridated public water supplies, shown to be safe and to substantially prevent dental decay, is disturbing. He promotes unpasteurized milk consumption which can cause serious infections. I could go on.
Most alarming is Kennedy’s position on vaccines. Although claiming not to be anti-vaccine, he founded a major anti-vaccine organization and has stated that there is no effective and safe vaccine and that vaccines cause autism.
He’s critical of the mRNA COVID vaccine. Kennedy calls it “the most deadly vaccine ever made” despite its proven safety and the fact it saved 3 million lives. Kennedy endorses ineffective alternative COVID treatments and even claims that the COVID virus was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Outrageous.
He asserts that the polio vaccine could cause more deaths than it averts, and that the measles vaccine causes all the same illnesses as a measles infection. Astonishing.
Kennedy minimized the Texas measles outbreak and conveyed inaccurate information. Later, under pressure, he issued a qualified endorsement of measles vaccination while promoting personal choice and alternative interventions of nutrition, vitamin A, and corticosteroids. Nonsense.
He may require placebo-controlled clinical trials for new vaccines when an effective vaccine already exists. Kennedy muses about unnecessarily instituting the same requirement for updated seasonal COVID and flu vaccines, potentially making these vaccines unavailable before the season begins. Absolutely unethical.
Kennedy dismissed the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of independent vaccine advisors who determine immunization recommendations. He appointed as replacements some anti-vaccine activists and unqualified individuals who have issued non-evidenced-based decisions. Without scientific justification, Kennedy made the personal decision to end the COVID vaccine recommendation for pregnant women, a high-risk group for severe disease.
There are already concerning levels of vaccine hesitancy and disdain. It won’t take much for Kennedy sowing vaccine doubt to sway many into vaccine refusal, potentially resulting in disease reemergence. The medical profession increasingly distrusts CDC information and recommendations and will look to professional societies for reliable guidance on immunization and other issues.
Kennedy plans to conduct “extensive research” over several months on the causes of autism. One can predictably anticipate the result despite a multitude of independent studies conducted over decades finding no association between vaccines and autism, and in particular, the measles vaccine. This is considered “settled science” just like tobacco causing lung cancer.
The public’s fears about vaccines causing autism were fueled by the completely fraudulent 1998 Lancet journal study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield on the measles vaccine. Lancet retracted Wakefield’s paper in humiliation. He was totally discredited and lost his British medical license.
One can only imagine Kennedy’s response to a new pandemic. With his utter disregard for scientific evidence, his public health and medical naivety, and his misleading and false narratives, it’s a very forbidding thought.
Richard D. Feldman, M.D. is an Indianapolis family physician and former Indiana State Health Commissioner who served in the administration of Governor Frank O’Bannon.
Feldman is grossly misinformed on fluoride which is labelled by the FDA as unapproved drugs because no safety testing was ever conducted. On fact, FDA Is poised to temove them from the market because studies show the increase risk of dental fluorosid without benefit of less tooth decay
Thank-you Dr Feldman for the accurate and cogent rationale regarding current concerns about our DHS “secretary”. The incredible hubris that he and his followers have toward the state of public health in the US is calamitous and I believe will lead to catastrophic results. I’ve cared for adults suffering from the sequelae of childhood polio. Thankfully they survived but many are left with incredible musculoskeletal problems. I’ve cared for children struggling to breath with pneumonia following measles and/or whooping cough(pertussis). The COVID epidemic crippled our healthcare system. Infectious diseases don’t just go away and disappear. Medical care, research, public education, and vaccines are the solution.