Every Republican senator except Mitch McConnell voted to confirm RFK JR. as Health Secretary. My state senators, Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, included. Tillis celebrates that Kennedy will be a “disruptor” in health care — as if anyone wants their care disrupted (I’m quite sure Tillis’ government-provided healthcare won’t be). He’s always been willing to toady to Trump but now he’s even cheering about it (Budd isn’t any better but doesn’t talk as much). Here’s a look at what a dreadful choice they’ve made:
First, aside from healthcare, Kennedy has a visceral negative reaction to removing statues of Robert E. Lee: “There were heroes in the Confederacy who didn’t have slaves … we should celebrate the good qualities of everybody.” Lee broke his oath of office, waged war on his own country and was responsible for more American dead than any foreign general we ever fought. His army captured and enslaved free blacks. He’s also a loyal follower of the Felon’s plans to deny trans people exist.
Now, healthcare: RFK Jr. claims no vaccine is safe and effective. By most standards this is a lie but Kennedy uses the anti-vax standard that anything less than 100 percent safety and 100 percent effectiveness is a bad vaccine. And he’s declared that nothing is off limits — “a new presidential commission would scrutinize childhood vaccine schedules, psychiatric medications …” despite telling the senate he wouldn’t look at vaccine schedules. Studying the effectiveness of vaccines in use for years is harder than it looks — and I don’t for a minute believe Kennedy will accept any study that contradicts his views. That he wants to set up a commission rather than any sort of research is ominous.
As Megan McArdle points out, he says polio vaccine may have killed more people than it saved. Despite the vaccine-autism link being debunked repeatedly, he (like Trump’s pick for CDC head) won’t say vaccines don’t cause autism (as some autistic individuals have pointed out, as an anti-vax argument that’s saying “better dead than autistic.”). He’s not a “vaccine skeptic,” he’s an anti-vaxxer who tells people not to get vaccinated. In 2021 he wanted the FDA to withdraw approval of covid vaccines. His beliefs have already gotten people killed. That may be only the beginning: measles kills and vaccines prevent that.
HPV vaccines do good too. And if malaria vaccines work, that’s a game changer for Africa. Too bad the Felon’s policies are getting in the way. Trump’s National Institute of Health may be a catastrophe too.
Bird flu is becoming a serious problem, even if it never achieves animal-human transmission. I don’t think Mr. Brain-Worm is up to the challenge, or believes he should do anything to prevent it.
Kennedy lies that antidepressants have been linked to school shootings and people who take them are addicts. His rather Maoist alternative is to force them to labor on organic farms for a few years, eating organic food to make themselves healthy. And of course, while healthy food is important, Republican policies will make it harder for people to obtain it.
One reason this kind of nuttery has supporters (I have friends who are thrilled he’s been appointed) — on top of the conviction the Felon of The United States cannot be wrong about anything — is that it plays into a long tradition of miracle cures and simple solution. Doctors do make mistakes, particularly about women’s health. Simple solutions appeal to lots of people. Going and living simply off the land in some kind of commune is a dream with a long history (not usually involving government coercing you). Unfortunately, there’s a nasty slide from wellness groups down into conspiracist right-wing thinking, the wellness-to-fascism pipeline. And so we end up with Missouri a couple of years back debating whether to ban non-existent microchips in vaccines.
There’s also money, as Time magazine points out. Ivermectin-prescribing doctors made bank. More generally, lots of people who scream about wellness and not trusting corrupt Big Pharma are making money off the alternatives. So does RFK (see also).
