This man has no place in U.S. public health. He has claimed that he has no intention of dismantling the childhood vaccination program, but it’s so much more than that!
They seriously want to put someone in charge of the country’s public health who does not believe the scientists, the experts, and doesn’t believe that vaccines are safe and effective! Even though experts across the board have dismissed his claims.
There are so many things wrong with this! Here are some of the problems, just on the subject of health and medicine:
- He still claims that vaccines cause autism.
- He claimed that the COVID-19 virus was genetically engineered to target white people and to spare Jewish and Chinese people.
- He promoted using ivermectin as a treatment for COVID and enriched himself through that.
- He perpetuated myths about vaccination with “an utter disregard for the evidence”.
- He claims that fluoride in American drinking water is causing arthritis, bone cancer, and much more, even though the very low levels of fluoride have not been associated with any of that.
- He has made MILLIONS of dollars from supporting anti-vax propaganda by helping sue companies that make vaccines.
- He made roughly $10 MILLION just this year used his work for an anti-vaccine nonprofit and he only left that position to try to become HHS Secretary.
- He has written books that have spread falsehoods about vaccine safety and other health issues.
- While ignoring mainstream science, he cited flawed or tangential research to make his points, such as suggesting Black people may need different vaccines than whites.
- During the COVID pandemic, he made numerous public statements about “chemtrails,” saying that the world is being poisoned with evil chemicals from jet planes.
- Since 2015 he has been an anti-vaccine activist.
- He has rejected established science showing H.I.V. causes AIDS.
- He claimed without evidence that chemicals in drinking water were altering children’s gender and sexual identities.
- Like so many in Trump’s administration, he is making money from his role. He has already made over $100,000 just from the MAHA merchandise (Make America Healthy Again).
- He has also received substantial support from activists who have spread misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines.
- In 2019, he helped spread misinformation about the safety of the measles vaccine to people in Samoa, which led to dozens of children’s deaths.
- When confronted about his disinformation, he always backtracks and says he’s not “condemning it outright, but just saying they should be looked into.” That’s a form of sealioning, where someone harasses or trolls people by making wild claims or relentlessly asking basic or unrelated questions and then, when confronted about it, says: “I’m just asking a question.”
- He repeatedly asked for evidence that vaccines are safe, and then when he saw it, he dismissed it.
- “He ignores science. He cherry-picks sometimes fraudulent studies. Sometimes he takes well-done studies and takes little pieces of them out of context.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, during RFK’s hearing, pointed out these various things that he could do while Secretary of the $1.7 trillion Department of Health & Human Services:
- He could appoint people to the CDC vaccine panel who share his anti-vax views and let them do his dirty work.
- He could tell the CDC vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccine schedule.
- He could remove vaccines from special compensation programs, which would open up manufacturers to mass torts.
- He could make more injuries eligible for compensation even if there’s no causal evidence.
- He could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits.
- He could turn over FDA data to his friends at the law firm, and they could use it however it benefitted them.
- He could change vaccine labelling.
- He could change vaccine information rules.
- He could change which claims are compensated in the vaccine injury compensation program.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-confirmation-robert-f-kennedy-merck/
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo
Source: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-money-vaccines-salary-trump-cfd26a0d9e88e901b596f823a6f766f2
Source: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-vaccine-trump-science-autism-9b99621b01f11b7f0bdc81e5a0b82d2b
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/rfk-jr-admits-didn-t-021222118.html
Source: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/note-robert-f-kennedy-jr
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/us/rfk-jr-finances.html
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/rfk-conspiracy-theories-fact-check.html
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-junk-science-of-robert-f-kennedy-jr
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3kkz8z3o
Source: https://news.immunologic.org/p/are-food-dyes-used-in-the-us-banned
Source: https://cen.acs.org/policy/regulation/RFK-nomination-disturbs-health-scientists/102/web/2024/11