By Dr. Richard Feldman
Guest columnist
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, inexplicably advances conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and disinformation on public health issues. He legitimizes fringe perspectives and pseudoscience. He appears ignorant of facts, naïve about effective public health strategies, and frequently disingenuous.
Kennedy repeatedly magnifies, misrepresents, and twists facts to support his position. His conclusions on research studies often extend well beyond what the data indicate.
He has some valid concerns – environmental pollution, high chronic disease rates, ultra-processed foods, toxins, and food additives including dyes. But Kennedy’s promotion of good nutrition as his strategy against obesity and other maladies is overly simplistic and naïve.
His opposition to prescription fluoride supplements and fluoridated public water supplies, shown to be safe and to substantially prevent dental decay, is disturbing. He promotes unpasteurized milk consumption which can cause serious infections. I could go on.
Most alarming is Kennedy’s position on vaccines. Although claiming not to be anti-vaccine, he founded a major anti-vaccine organization and has stated that there is no effective and safe vaccine and that vaccines cause autism.
He’s critical of the mRNA COVID vaccine. Kennedy calls it “the most deadly vaccine ever made” despite its proven safety and the fact it saved 3 million lives. Kennedy endorses ineffective alternative COVID treatments and even claims that the COVID virus was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Outrageous.
He asserts that the polio vaccine could cause more deaths than it averts, and that the measles vaccine causes all the same illnesses as a measles infection. Astonishing.
Kennedy minimized the Texas measles outbreak and conveyed inaccurate information. Later, under pressure, he issued a qualified endorsement of measles vaccination while promoting personal choice and alternative interventions of nutrition, vitamin A, and corticosteroids. Nonsense.
He may require placebo-controlled clinical trials for new vaccines when an effective vaccine already exists. Kennedy muses about unnecessarily instituting the same requirement for updated seasonal COVID and flu vaccines, potentially making these vaccines unavailable before the season begins. Absolutely unethical.
Kennedy dismissed the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of independent vaccine advisors who determine immunization recommendations. He appointed as replacements some anti-vaccine activists and unqualified individuals who have issued non-evidenced-based decisions. Without scientific justification, Kennedy made the personal decision to end the COVID vaccine recommendation for pregnant women, a high-risk group for severe disease.
There are already concerning levels of vaccine hesitancy and distain. It won’t take much for Kennedy sowing vaccine doubt to sway many into vaccine refusal, potentially resulting in disease reemergence. The medical profession increasingly distrusts CDC information and recommendations and will look to professional societies for reliable guidance on immunization and other issues.
Kennedy plans to conduct “extensive research” over several months on the causes of autism. One can predictably anticipate the result despite a multitude of independent studies conducted over decades finding no association between vaccines and autism, and in particular, the measles vaccine. This is considered “settled science” just like tobacco causing lung cancer.
The public’s fears about vaccines causing autism were fueled by the completely fraudulent 1998 Lancet journal study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield on the measles vaccine. Lancet retracted Wakefield’s paper in humiliation. He was totally discredited and lost his British medical license.
One can only imagine Kennedy’s response to a new pandemic. With his utter disregard for scientific evidence, his public health and medical naivety, and his misleading and false narratives, it’s a very forbidding thought.
Dr. Richard Feldman is an Indianapolis family physician and the former state health commissioner. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
