Earlier this month, Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky and a polio survivor, made a strong statement against attempts to erode trust in established medical treatments, implying that such activities are not only misinformed but possibly hazardous. He went on to say that any potential nominees to the incoming government should strenuously avoid affiliating with such misguided efforts, in an unmistakable reference to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary nominee.
While Kennedy asserts that he has never discouraged the public from getting vaccinated, there is evidence to suggest a different narrative. This is like an old 1920s song where the lyrics insist, ‘Your lips tell me no, no, but your eyes say yes, yes.’
Consider the 2018 scenario in Samoa: after two infants tragically died after receiving an immunizing shot against measles, the Samoan government halted its children’s vaccination program. This brought the vaccination rate down drastically from 74% to just 31%, and herd immunity quickly eroded. In 2019, a measles outbreak struck, resulting in 5,700 infections and 83 deaths.
During this crisis, Kennedy penned a letter to Samoa’s Prime Minister, speculating that vaccines intended for expectant mothers might have induced more aggressive measles strains. He visited Samoa under the sponsorship of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization he founded, where he publicly lauded a Samoan activist who described the vaccine as ‘the largest crime against our own people,’ calling him a ‘hero of medical freedom.’
Subsequently, the World Health Organization confirmed that the tragic deaths of the infants were caused by an accidental addition of a muscle relaxant to their vaccines by two nurses. Kennedy refused to accept this conclusion, arguing that he played no part in Samoan people’s decision to abandon vaccinations. In his words, ‘I never told anybody not to vaccinate.’
In 2021, when asked about childhood vaccines, Kennedy expressed his mission was to counter and discuss it with everyone. He even mentioned how he advises parents he encounters to avoid vaccinating their kids, hoping to influence their decision. This urgency he propagates for resisting vaccinations came into even sharper focus when, two years later, he claimed, ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,’ building his premise on a discredited 1998 study that linked vaccines to autism.
According to Kennedy, the harm caused by the polio vaccine outweighs its benefits. He goes as far as claiming that the 1918 influenza outbreak and the advent of HIV were direct results of vaccine research labs’ work. His conspiracy theories do not stop there. He posited that COVID-19 was a bioweapon designed ‘to attack Caucasians and black people’ with people of Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese descent showing the most immunity.
Kennedy also asserted that the COVID vaccine’s administration to children amounts to ‘criminal medical malpractice.’ As per his theory, Operation Warp Speed is a planned conspiracy involving intelligence agencies, the U.S. military, a vaccine mafia led by Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci. The passing of baseball legend Hank Aaron at 86 was according to Kennedy, part of ‘a wave of suspicious deaths’ linked to the vaccine.
During the peak of the pandemic, Kennedy made a controversial remark comparing the restrictions on American citizens to the persecution Jews faced during Nazi Germany. He argued that even during Nazi times one could escape by crossing the Alps into Switzerland or hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.
His unfounded beliefs also spill onto other topics like fluoridation of water, which he argues, is the root cause of numerous health concerns ranging from arthritis to neurodevelopmental disorders. He is in favor of eliminating fluoride in the country’s water systems. He then blames the prevalence of school shootings on the introduction of antidepressants, alleging an almost non-existent rate of such events before Prozac came into the picture.
Further, Kennedy makes striking allegations regarding possible ‘gender confusion’ caused by exposure to chemical ‘endocrine disrupters’ present in tap water. He is convinced these chemicals can undesirably alter male frogs, and he suggests the same could apply to humans. In addition, he argues that the design intent of 5G high-speed networks is to control human behavior.
In 2022, Aaron Siri, presently assisting Kennedy in selecting HHS candidates, asked the FDA to withdraw approval for polio vaccines and 13 other illnesses. He commends Siri saying ‘There’s nobody who’s been a greater asset to the medical freedom movement than him.’
In contrast to Kennedy’s conjectures, there’s compelling evidence underscoring vaccines as one of the greatest human achievements. Over the last half-century, vaccines are estimated to have saved around 154 million lives globally. Mandatory immunization has dropped infant mortality by 40%, almost eliminated smallpox, decreased instances of polio by 99%, saved 98 million people from measles, and prevented nearly 20 million deaths from COVID.
Kennedy’s controversial remarks about the 1918 pandemic, HIV, COVID immunity, the origins and intent of Operation Warp Speed, autism, antidepressants, fluoridated water, 5G networks, and gender dysphoria have all been extensively debunked.
If Kennedy becomes the head of HHS, he has the potential to alter the mechanism used to determine whether vaccines are eligible for insurance coverage. He could require childhood vaccines, which have already undergone clinical trials, to face double-blind trials. This could potentially mean withholding protection from the children receiving placebos, delaying the returning of vaccines to general use and possibly continue spreading misinformation about vaccines and their safety.
While campaigning, Trump reassured voters that he would allow Kennedy ‘to run wild,’ though last week, he tempered expectations by suggesting Kennedy might be ‘much less radical than you would think.’ Despite these assurances, 75 Nobel laureates from medicine, chemistry, physics, and economics sectors have urged the Senate to reject Kennedy, citing a tremendous threat to public health.