It’s cause for alarm that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — best known for his outspoken and twisted views on vaccines, public health and other science issues — has been promised a “major role” in the upcoming Trump administration.
Donald Trump has encouraged this controversial figure, who trades on his family’s famous name, to “go wild on health … go wild on medicines.” Kennedy reportedly has been promised “control” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and federal health care agencies, and he’s already saying he will “clear out” entire Food and Drug Administration departments. Kennedy’s anti-scientific rhetoric poses serious risks to the American people — affecting public health, scientific trust, and the overall quality of information accessible to the public.
Whether he is the “health czar” (which would avoid the need for Senate confirmation) or in the cabinet, Kennedy would present a clear and present danger to public health. He is an attorney with no degrees in medicine or public health and is notorious for publicizing the discredited theory that childhood vaccines are a cause of autism.
As an independent presidential candidate who then pledged support to Trump, Kennedy opposes many childhood vaccinations, was a leading opponent of immunization during the pandemic and opposes water fluoridation. He insists fluoride, which protects teeth from decay, is “lowering IQ in our children” and causing other ominous medical problems despite decades of studies showing its safety and utility.
Kennedy’s well-known opposition to vaccines, particularly for childhood immunizations and Covid-19, would have chilling implications for public health. Vaccines are a critical tool in preventing the spread of infectious diseases, a fact backed by decades of scientific evidence and successful implementation worldwide.
After receiving pushback for his anti-vaccine views, Kennedy recently claimed he wouldn’t “take away anybody’s vaccines.” But given his decades of spreading vaccination conspiracy theories, it is ominous when he adds that he wants to give Americans the “best information.” By constantly casting doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, Kennedy has contributed to drops in vaccination rates. When that occurs, diseases that were once rare or eliminated can resurge, endangering vulnerable populations, particularly older adults and seniors, immunocompromised individuals and children who cannot yet be vaccinated.
Kennedy authored a dubious book, “The Real Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” and as a presidential candidate, talked about prosecuting Dr Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has vowed: “FDA’s war on public health is about to end.” In a long list of treatments, including “sunshine,” that he claims the FDA has suppressed, he includes the discredited “ivermectin,” a drug usually prescribed to treat parasitic worms in livestock that pseudoscientists promoted to treat Covid.
If he receives a prominent role in our government, he could influence policy decisions in ways that sideline or undermine scientific evidence, affecting issues from environmental policy to healthcare access and regulation. By pushing anti-scientific policies, he could weaken regulatory frameworks designed to protect public health, hinder scientific innovation, and make Americans more vulnerable to preventable health crises.
Kennedy’s populist criticism of “Big Pharma” exploits the concerns of Americans who may have good reason to distrust drug companies and their profit margins. While skepticism and open discourse are essential in any democracy, Kennedy’s brand of anti-scientific rhetoric has crossed the line into dangerous territory. Kennedy’s rhetoric aligns with a broader movement of anti-scientific messaging that has been growing with the advent of social media. Science should rise above the fray and remain a foundation for policy and public health. Anyone in a position of power over U.S. policy has a responsibility to support, not weaken, evidence-based knowledge.
Kennedy’s anti-science views are almost certain to politicize health measures further, turning issues like childhood vaccination into polarizing topics that divide the public along ideological lines. Just this month, a regional public health department in Idaho announced that it no longer provides Covid-19 vaccines to residents in six counties. Even after measles was nearly eliminated in the United States in 2000, almost 1,300 cases of measles were reported in 2019 in 31 states in the country, linked to travel that reached unvaccinated or undervaccinated individuals, according to the CDC. The Washington Post reports that Kennedy not only lobbied U.S. lawmakers to reduce vaccines but also the leaders of Samoa, even as that nation had a measles outbreak killing dozens of children. Trump and Kennedy’s hostility to U.S. public health agencies will endanger the tracking of diseases, advice and the ability of Americans to rely on federal public health websites as reliable sources of information.
“Kennedy has repeatedly demonstrated that he ought not to be our ‘health czar’ or make any decisions affecting public health,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
