Republicans Confirm Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theorist to Run Nation’s Health Systems
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran a failed 2024 presidential campaign built on crank beliefs about medical science before dropping out and endorsing Donald Trump, was confirmed today by Senate Republicans as the president’s secretary of Health and Human Services. The position will allow him to inflict untold damage on the well-being of millions in his ruinous quest to “Make America Healthy Again.”
The Senate confirmed Kennedy in a 52-48 vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joining every Democrat in opposing the nomination. McConnell was also the only Republican to vote against confirming Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence on Wednesday.
“Individuals, parents, and families have a right to push for a healthier America and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness,” McConnell wrote in a statement after the vote went final. “But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.”
One of many dangerously unqualified loyalists selected by Trump for his inner circle (including Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and FBI pick Kash Patel), RFK Jr., a former environmental lawyer, has no medical or health training, nor is he a physician. Yet he is soon to oversee 11 health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency task force has already moved to slash grants that fund research at universities across the U.S.
Kennedy’s nomination was opposed by Democrats in Congress, 75 Nobel Prize winners, and thousands of doctors, as well as his cousin, former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, who wrote in a letter to senators that he is a “predator” who is “addicted to attention and power.” Various Kennedy relatives had urged RFK Jr. to drop his 2024 presidential bid at the time and denounced him when he backed Trump.
Kennedy — whose father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and uncle, President John F. Kennedy, were liberal Democrats assassinated in the 1960s — has long stood apart from his famous family in his outspoken criticism of vaccines, which he has falsely linked to autism. (He once did so in a 2005 Rolling Stone article that has since been retracted.) Kennedy founded and for years served as chairman of the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense and, in 2021, petitioned the FDA to revoke authorization for life-saving Covid-19 vaccines. Elsewhere in the course of the pandemic, he compared public health measures to the Nazi Holocaust and falsely claimed that “Covid-19 is targeted to attack caucasians and Black people.”
RFK Jr.’s rise to the top of the HHS — the largest department in the federal government — comes as the world faces down another potentially devastating viral outbreak. The CDC has reported dozens of cases of H5 bird flu in the U.S., and one death associated with the disease. A risk factor in the spread of the illness is the consumption of raw milk, which Kennedy says is the only kind he drinks; he has promised to end the FDA’s “suppression” of raw milk and is reportedly considering the hire of a CEO in the industry as an FDA adviser. His vaccine denialism has further concerned health experts warning about the potential impact of the virus.
When questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy did not entirely disavow some of his bizarre and unfounded medical conspiracy theories. He agreed, for example, that he had “probably said” at one point that Lyme disease is likely a militarily engineered bioweapon. However, he lied about past statements, including suggesting that pesticides cause children to become transgender, and insisted he played no role in a deadly outbreak of measles in Samoa in 2019 after Children’s Health Defense allegedly promoted anti-vaccine sentiment in the island nation. (A total of 83 people died of the preventable disease, most of them young children.)
Among the other unscientific notions spread by RFK Jr. are that prescription antidepressants may cause school shootings, that Americans are being “poisoned” by seed oils, that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are effective treatments for Covid-19, that HIV might not cause AIDS, that Wi-Fi exposure leads to brain cancer, and that fluoridated drinking water is harmful. Kennedy himself has experienced some unusual medical issues, from mercury poisoning attributed to a fish-heavy diet to the discovery of a dead parasitic worm lodged in his brain, most likely a pork tapeworm. Accounts of his strange behavior — like the time he removed a dead bear cub from a road to butcher for meat but later dumped it in Central Park — have raised doubts as to his suitability for government (to say nothing of his alleged inappropriate relationship with a journalist who profiled him during his campaign).
A recovering heroin addict, Kennedy wants to battle addiction in the U.S. with “healing farms,” though drug policy experts say this is a risky plan focused on moral redemption rather than clinical health care. He has suggested pausing all infection disease research in the country — a proposal that could be effectively enacted by DOGE-imposed cuts at the NIH, where Kennedy has said he would fire hundreds of employees. Another potential item on his agenda is the prosecution of leading medical journals if they don’t start publishing what he calls “real science,” which presumably encompasses the many debunked conspiracy theories he repeats. He has been especially critical of the FDA, accusing the agency of waging a “war on public health” and vowing to eliminate entire departments of the agency.
There’s no telling which of his many ambitions RFK Jr. will be able to realize as the nation’s top health official. But given his long, messy, alarming history of spreading misinformation and advocating for the downfall of the medical establishment, Trump’s promise that he will “go wild” in this new job feels like something of an understatement.
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