RFK Jr. says he isn’t an anti-vaxxer. He’s wrong
If he can make it past the Senate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the next secretary of Health and Human Services. Since the position was created, each secretary has had significant experience in public health, health care administration, or related government work. None has listed “spreading vaccine misinformation” as their primary health care experience.
While in this position there will be some limits to Kennedy’s power — some actions require congressional approval, or are statutorily tied to the peer review process. Nevertheless, as a scientist who has studied and written about the anti-vaccine movement, I am deeply concerned, particularly because some have already started to whitewash his positions on vaccination.
Kennedy has said he would like to eliminate entire departments, such as the nutrition department at the FDA. He believes that health problems are caused by “seed oils, and pesticides,” and wishes to use the mechanisms of government to eliminate these from the American diet. In a post on the X, once known as Twitter, he wrote that he wants to end the FDA’s “war” on raw milk, chelating compounds, anti-parasite drug ivermectin, and sunshine — although it is not clear why he believes that the FDA has been at war against sunshine. He has long been concerned about heavy metal exposure, publishing a 2014 book warning of dangers from mercury in vaccines (although the mercury compound he was referencing had been removed from almost all childhood vaccines 15 years prior).
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