RFK Jr pushes conspiracy theories in FDA speech, prompts staff walkouts
Last week, Robert F Kennedy, Jr (RFK Jr) gave a speech at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wherein he invoked the ‘deep state’ and made dubious claims about autism.
In a speech theoretically intended to imbue a sense of calm and strong leadership amid sweeping job cuts at the agency and others this month, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary instead promulgated a range of baseless claims on various topics, according to a transcript of the 40-minute speech seen by Politico.
“[But]… the deep state is real. And it’s not, you know, just George Soros and Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the, you know, the destruction of humanity,” RFK Jr told FDA staff.
Given the assertion about the ‘deep state’ and the ensuing accusation that FDA employees were ‘sock puppets’ to the industry they regulate, the HHS secretary advised staff to “take advantage” during his time at the helm of the department, vowing that the overarching health agency would not be “subject to undue influence and would listen to dissidents”.
RFK Jr’s autism scepticism elicits rebuttal
Stating that “this whole generation is damaged”, RFK Jr’s speech went on to claim that rising rates of chronic disease, allergies and other illnesses were attributable to “some environmental toxin”.
The HHS secretary also expressed dubiety over autism and said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would soon release “new data” showing that the neurological disorder now affects one in 31 individuals, up from current estimates of one in 36.
RFK Jr has since revealed that a mass “testing and research effort” on autism is underway at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and that “we will know” the cause of the “autism epidemic by September”.
In an anecdote about spending time at a New York school for individuals with disabilities when he was younger, RFK Jr claimed that he saw people with intellectual disabilities all the time, yet “never saw anybody with autism”.
The Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) expressed disappointment at the secretary’s remarks, stating that the idea that autistic people of Kennedy’s age (70 years) do not exist is false.
“Autistic people have always been here, but before widespread autism diagnosis, we either went undiagnosed, or received different diagnoses than would be used today – for example, the outdated diagnosis of ‘childhood schizophrenia’ for autism, or diagnosing people who today would only have an autism diagnosis with intellectual disability,” ASAN wrote in a statement.
“Autistic people in Kennedy’s generation were often institutionalised or incarcerated. Even if Kennedy did not see us, that does not mean we were not there.”
Certain legitimate healthcare practitioners view RFK Jr’s role as HHS secretary to be untenable. This month, American Public Health Association’s executive director Dr Georges C Benjamin said in a statement that RFK Jr was a “danger to the public’s health” and called for him to “resign or be fired”.
According to reports, amid his conspiracy theory-freighted diatribe, RFK Jr made little mention of this month’s job cuts at the agencies nested under the HHS. However, this is perhaps unsurprising, given that the health secretary made apparent his ignorance over the potential impact that layoffs at the agencies would have, as per a televised interview with CBS News on 9 April.
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