
The development of widespread vaccinations has been one of the most outstanding achievements in human history, saving 50 million lives over the past 50 years and cutting infant mortality by 40 percent worldwide. Thanks to vaccination programs, health officials have also eliminated smallpox, reduced polio cases by more than 99 percent, and decreased hepatitis B infections by 90 percent, virtually eradicating these diseases in the United States. Vaccines are better researched than nearly all aspects of healthcare, according to Dr. David Elliman of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., more commonly known as RFK Jr., is President Trump’s nominee for the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Despite being a (legacy-admitted) Harvard University and UVA School of Law alumnus, he still manages to have no concept of politics, modern medicine, or reality itself. He rose to fame as the son of a senator and the nephew of a former president. In summary, he became a notorious political figure because he was a Kennedy, not because he was qualified. However, in recent years, he has become famous in his own right for a set of scandals. From brain worms to leaving animal carcasses in Central Park to being a proud conspiracy theorist and becoming the new poster child of the anti-vax movement, the list goes on.
After ending his destined-to-fail presidential campaign to endorse Trump in the 2024 election, RFK Jr. was chosen to lead HHS. Like others in Trump’s new cabinet, RFK lacks governmental experience and has a concerning grasp on reality, often giving incompetent and misleading statements–an ironic choice for the political party that constantly bashed President Biden for his cognitive decline during his term.
As the health secretary, RFK Jr. will control the nation’s medications, food safety, medical research, and vaccines, and will likely use this control to promote anti-vax conspiracy theories. Trump’s decision to give RFK that much power–combined with his executive order to withdraw from the World Health Organization–appears to be a joint attempt to gut America’s public health by withdrawing the country from all international medical research and replacing it with a far-right dogma grounded in personal, anti-leftist beliefs over scientific reason.
RFK Jr.’s main concern about vaccination centers on thimerosal, a mercury preservative formerly used in vaccines. However, thimerosal is different from environmental mercury; it leaves the body quickly and destroys harmful bacteria that grew in the multi-dose bottles used before World War II, and minuscule amounts have not shown any harm to the human body. Still, thimerosal was removed from all childhood vaccines as of 2001. RFK Jr. also falsely claims that vaccination causes autism as a way to fearmonger the public into hating vaccines, going so far as to publish an entire book about it and writing an article published in Rolling Stone that was later taken down.
Moreover, RFK Jr. has proven that he uses multiple conspiracy theories to undermine public trust in scientific processes. For example, he is a staunch advocate of the safety of raw milk consumption, completely disregarding the dangers of H5N1. He falsely linked vaccines as causes of various medical conditions and tried to convince the public that COVID-19 spared Jewish and Chinese people, comparing vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany. But the COVID-19 pandemic showed us how devastating a life without vaccines is, even in the twenty-first century.
RFK Jr. is unstable and unsafe. His own family has said he was dangerous. He avoids the realities of the anti-vax movement and blames its falsehoods on racist and antisemitic tropes rather than the follies of his own ideologies. Why has his attempt to gain popularity by throwing swaths of misinformation at the media been successful? Because he’s a Kennedy, and one of Trump’s new henchmen.
Given RFK Jr.’s utter disregard for scientific evidence, he could set this country back decades, bring about a resurgence of preventable diseases, and be responsible for the deaths of countless people, particularly children and those in marginalized communities. We should turn our attention to RFK-proofing our country to protect the American people from the virus that he is.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
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