Amidst America’s obnoxious societal trends has been emergence of “influencers” and B-list celebrities. They’ve used social media to peddle conspiracy theories, advance “alternative” facts,” and demand attention. They’re hardly harmless, spreading suspicion and nurturing division. Once again, 65 years after dawn of the John Birch Society, we hear falsehoods about water fluoridation. A claim that measles vaccination causes autism in children, although disproven, is widely peddled.
A prime example of the species is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., environmental attorney, son of the slain senator and high-profile anti-vaxxer. The Northwest has seen lots of him in recent years, initially doing good but more recently doing well.
RFK Jr. was carried ashore in a canoe by Aboriginal First Native activists as part of a protest to save old growth forests on Meares Island in British Columbia’s Clayoquot Sound. He came through after the 2004 presidential election with a claim that George W. Bush and Karl Rove “stole” Ohio.
He was used to lure wealthy Germans to an ecotourist expedition up the B.C. Coast to Princess Royal Island, home to rare kermode (white) bears. And he led legions of anti-vaxxers when the Legislature tightened student vaccine requirements after an outbreak of measles in Clark County.
It is amazing that this person, an ex-heroin addict who shared his habit with schoolmates, and peddler of falsehoods could be sitting in the president’s Cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Family members and siblings of RFK’s family have repeatedly warned of extreme views that pose a danger to public health.
Kennedy began 2024 with a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. He registered in the teens when pollsters did a matchup with President Biden, and support quickly faded away. He folded his tent and became a warmup at rallies of the MAGA faithful — despite Trump’s disdain for the environment and overt racism. Known for three marriages and a sex life reported in the Murdoch media, Kennedy entered into a bromance with Trump.
The Cabinet Secretary now charged with overseeing the nation’s public health and the world’s largest biomedical research arm has been quoted as saying that “no vaccine” is “safe and effective.” In the month after being confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he canceled 780 research grants, targeting 220 grantees including 94 public universities.
The Trump Administration’s campaign against “woke” has put certain diseases into disfavor. Axed, for instance, was a $72.7 million grant to Florida State University for research, treatment, care, living with HIV/AIDS for those men afflicted in teens and early 20’s.
“We never thought they would destroy an entire network dedicated to young Americans,” said Dr. Sylvia Hegel, a leading AIDS researcher. And more. Kennedy wants a year-long pause in infectious disease research. As down payment, 1,200 NIH worker fired during Kennedy’s first month at HHS.
It turns out, however, that Donald Trump’s wasn’t the only big comeback of late. The country has recorded 1,900 cases of measles this year. The disease has hit red state America, with the latest break in upstate South Carolina earlier this fall. The Palmetto State has counted 126 cases and counting, with 20 new cases this past week. Texas has experienced 700 cases. The Arizona-Utah border has experienced a third outbreak.
The disease is on the upswing in states where resistence to vaccines is centered. For instance, only 50 percent of children in Spartenburg County, South Carolina have received recommended vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella. (Idaho has passed legislation making local vaccine requirements illegal.)
Having testified against tightened requirements in this Washington, Kennedy has muddied the waters in Washington, D.C. He has described vaccination against measles as a “personal choice,” even as South Carolina quarantined those exposed.
RFK Jr. has also touted Vitamin A, and promoted Vitamin A, as an “alternative” that will dramatically reduce measles mortality.” Disease experts have been appalled. “Vitamin A is NOT a substitute for vaccination,” Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told CNN.
Kennedy has brought a like-minded supporting cast into the federal government. One of his first acts at HHS was to fire all the scientific and medical experts who made up the Center for Disease Control’s influential advisory committee. They were replaced by vaccine skeptics. The reconstituted panel, earlier this month, voted to narrow its recommendation that all newborn babies be vaccinated against hepatitis. In so doing, it overturned a 30-year precedent. The immunization is administered in infancy due to danger that mothers transmit the infection to babies at childbirth.
That vaccine offers lifelong protection. The panel also rooted to relax its three-shot recommendation, prompting this reaction from Dartmouth researcher Dr. Cody Meissner: “We will see more children and adolescents and adults infected with Hepatitis B.”
Added Dr. Klobuchar Munoz of the Disease Society of America: “How can this committee justify the removal of a well established, safe, and successful strategy that is going to protect the most vulnerable infants when the proper measures to identify those infants at risk are not in place?” The question has not been answered.
Kennedy soldiers on. Another casualty. He has canceled contracts and pulled funding for developing new vaccines that use mRNA technology to fight COVID 19 and other respiratory diseases. All told, $8.9 billion in grants have been canceled.
Kennedy insists he is pursuing a Make Americans Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy, stressing vitamins, nutrition and exercise. He has advanced, but lately walked back, an unproven claim claim that Tylenol taken during pregnancy could lead to autism among children.
Sen. Patty Murray, previously ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has called for the firing of Kennedy. Top on his list of sins, she says, was unseating scientists and packing the CDC advisory panel with anti-vaxers who favored “letting COVID-19 rip through communities.”
Consider also that we have a President who devours Big Macs, drives his golf cart onto greens, and coyly advocated injecting bleach as a cure for COVID-19.
This article also appears in Cascadia Advocate.
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