At a New York rally in October, Donald Trump promised the group that if elected, he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild” on well being, meals and medicines. It delighted the group, who imagined they had been cheering for higher well being and higher drugs. They’re in for a bitter shock.
Some who ought to know higher are providing cautious approval.
Nicely, he has a degree about fluoride within the water, a Washington Publish columnist conceded. American well being care has “change into too reliant on treating each matter of discomfort with a tablet as an alternative of tackling questions on setting, tradition and conduct,” mused a New York Instances contributor.
They appear to assume we will take what we like from the Kennedy buffet and depart the remaining. Not so. If he’s confirmed, we can’t get solely the three% of Kennedy concepts which are sane; we can be saddled with the 97% which are deranged. It is not that Kennedy is merely misinformed. It is that he is an energetic agent of misinformation. That is a personality drawback. Hiring him to run well being coverage for this nation is like hiring an arsonist to move the hearth division.
Measles is likely one of the most contagious illnesses to which human beings are prone. It used to kill about 500 within the U.S. yearly. In 2019, Samoa was experiencing a spike in measles instances as a result of a mistake and a lie. The error was made in 2018 by two nurses who blended substances for a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine incorrectly, inflicting the deaths of two infants.
The lies got here quickly after, inspired by RFK Jr., who has constantly propagated the parable that the MMR vaccine causes autism, peanut allergy symptoms and different illnesses. Although he now denies that he was ever “anti-vaccine,” Kennedy declared as lately as July that “there isn’t any vaccine that’s protected and efficient,” and “I do consider that autism does come from vaccines.”
Many Samoans had seen the movie “Vaxxed,” produced by two of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine allies, which alleged that the MMR vaccine was harmful, which led to an uptick in dad and mom refusing to get their youngsters vaccinated. After the deaths of the 2 infants, RFK Jr. threw gasoline on the hearth with a go to to the island, assembly with native vaccine opponents and voicing suspicions that the MMR vaccine had contained a mutant pressure and had brought on the then-burgeoning epidemic. Finally, greater than 3% of the entire inhabitants of the island was contaminated. For infants aged 6 to 11 months, that determine was nearer to twenty%. Greater than 150 of them died.
While you consider RFK Jr., consider rows of tiny coffins.
‘Urge for food for crackpottery’
Anti-vaccine activism has been the hallmark of Kennedy’s profession, however it not at all exhausts his urge for food for crackpottery. He has sworn to finish the Meals and Drug Administration’s “battle” on uncooked milk. Pay attention, if Kennedy desires to drink the stuff himself, it is a free nation and he can afford as many cows as he desires. However how did we attain a degree when it grew to become essential to argue that pasteurizing milk is a sound well being measure? Unpasteurized milk and cheese has been implicated in current outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli and different food-borne diseases. It may well additionally transmit chook flu.
RFK Jr. has speculated that wi-fi causes most cancers and “leaky mind,” and that antidepressants are chargeable for faculty shootings.
Neither is it simply Kennedy’s attraction to doltish concepts that ought to set off alarms. It is his tendency to think about sinister forces controlling issues. He believes the CIA killed his uncle, John F. Kennedy, in addition to his father, Robert F. Kennedy.
It wasn’t sufficient for him to assert that the COVID-19 vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” He additionally prompt that the virus itself was someway “focused to assault Caucasians and Black folks. The people who find themselves most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language.” He’s on report supporting the usage of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as an alternative of vaccines.
As secretary of Well being and Human Providers, RFK Jr. would have supervisory authority over the FDA, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Public Well being Service Commissioned Corps and the Indian Well being Service, amongst different companies. He has prompt that 600 staff of the NIH, which oversees vaccine growth, needs to be fired instantly and changed by his personal decisions.
Some Pollyannas think about that Kennedy’s management may imply more healthy consuming habits. That may be fascinating (if unlikely), however it substitutes hope for evaluation. Kennedy goes on jags about wholesome consuming. He has inveighed in opposition to ultra-processed meals (which is not loopy), however then lurches into jeremiads about seed oils “poisoning” our our bodies.
For the report, canola, sunflower and soybean oils are protected (although fats, like the rest, is greatest carefully). If Kennedy desires to fry his potatoes in beef tallow and wash it down with uncooked milk, extra energy to him, however in no way ought to any sane individual take his well being recommendation. Nor ought to any senator consent to offer him authority over authorities companies that regulate our meals and medicines.
He sees himself as a knight errant, however sadly, his “cures” contain reversing a few of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in historical past: pasteurization, vaccines and the scientific technique of figuring out reality.
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Mona Charen is coverage editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.
