Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Donald Trump announced that Robert Kennedy Jr. is his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and he’s getting support from unusual quarters.
Kennedy has no background in medical science and is known for his wacky, anti-scientific approach to health, which includes opposition to vaccines and sunscreen, health interventions that have saved millions of lives. Kennedy himself has a history of poor health, which included a parasitic brain worm that resulted in “mental fogginess and memory loss.”
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“Out country has a health pandemic, or epidemic even,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told reporters when asked about Trump’s intention to nominate Kennedy. Greene is an outspoken opponent of vaccination. “I think he’s gonna do a great job. He’s gonna fire all the people that are responsible for the most atrocious things that have been, you know, regulated and put into law and forced on Americans.”
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She said that Kennedy will bring the U.S. to the “European standard,” even though European countries generally had more strict vaccine requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kennedy also got support from out Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D).
“I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint [Robert Kennedy Jr.] to [HHS],” Polis wrote on X. “He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.”
Polis cited what he believes is Kennedy’s support for capping prescription drug prices and reducing the use of pesticides in agriculture in his post.
I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than… pic.twitter.com/cILtTYplcn
Kennedy has gotten attention for his bizarre beliefs on health matters. For example, he has said that COVID was engineered by China to target “Caucasians and Black people” and spare “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people. He claimed the U.S. is sending money to Ukraine to fund other racial bioweapons.
Absolutely disgusting and insane. The @nypost obtained video from a recent RFK Jr. event where he suggested COVID is a Chinese bioweapon “ethnically targeted” to “attack Caucasians and Black people” and to spare “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people. He then falsely claimed the… pic.twitter.com/reTqaEc1aL
Kennedy has been a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement, which is based on pseudoscience and uses misinformation to spread the belief that vaccines don’t prevent disease. He is a member and the chair of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization that claims that autism, ADHD, food allergies, cancer, and autoimmune disease are caused by vaccines.
Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense spread misinformation in 2018 in Samoa that led to a decline in the vaccination rate, which was followed by an outbreak of measles in which 57,000 people were infected and 83 people – including children – died.
Kennedy opposes the fluorination of water, which is considered one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century. Fluoridation improves dental health and particularly benefits children who can’t regularly access dental care, but it has also long been the subject of conspiracy theories.
Kennedy is also an HIV denialist, including over 100 pages of quotes from people who deny the connection between HIV and AIDS in his book The Real Anthony Fauci. Kennedy has disparagingly referred to the “orthodoxy that HIV alone causes AIDS” and the “theology that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS.” He has called medications used to treat HIV “absolutely fatal.” He refers to himself as an “AIDS dissident.”
Kent State University public health professor Tara Smith notes that Kennedy has engaged in “germ theory denial,” or the idea that microbes don’t spread disease. He has disparagingly referred to the scientific consensus that many diseases are caused by microbes as “germ their aficionados,” who he contrasted with “miasmists,” or people who believe that a miasma over a certain terrain is the cause of infectious diseases.
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