Many Americans, and certainly all 100 members of the U.S. Senate, knew precisely what would happen if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
An opponent of vaccines and the confirmed science behind them, Kennedy was certain to upend generations of public health progress if put in a position of power. That 52 senators voted in favor of his confirmation defies comprehension.
Sure enough, Kennedy’s brief time at the helm at HHS has already inflicted considerable harm on federal and state public health programs, made America more vulnerable to infectious diseases and dangerously undermined confidence in life-saving vaccines. If there are benefits to his service in such an influential office, they have yet to materialize — and likely never will.
Since taking office, Kennedy has overseen widespread cuts to personnel and programs throughout the public health sector. He has halted promising work on an HIV vaccine, done little to arrest the spread of bird flu, and floated unproven remedies in response to a measles outbreak that has infected more than 1,100 people and killed three, including two children.
On Monday, Kennedy announced he had dismissed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, claiming it would “restore the public’s trust in vaccines.” This after he told Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy he wouldn’t do so.
Making Kennedy’s appointment all the more baffling is that it distances Trump from arguably the important accomplishment of his first term: the public-private partnership that enabled the rapid development of a COVID vaccine when the virus was killing scores of Americans each day.
Operation Warp Speed represented a triumph of science and research. It gave the nation hope that infections, hospitalizations and so many deaths could be slowed and perhaps, some day, even stopped. And it enabled states and cities to make plans for ending the lockdowns, quarantines and other policies imposed to protect public health.
The COVID vaccine worked. It didn’t prevent infection, but it did dramatically decrease the likelihood of death when the virus mutated into more lethal variants. That should have been cause for widespread celebration and relief, and inspire further confidence in the value of vaccination as a life-saving medical necessity.
Unfortunately, in America, there’s another strain of infection that’s been impossible to eradicate: ignorance. Though development of the COVID vaccine occurred under Trump, many of his supporters expressed trepidation about getting it. Dangerous conspiracy theories proliferated, finding fertile ground on social media and other corners of the internet.
Not that the political right has the market cornered on science deniers. There were plenty on the left who engaged in their own fantastic thinking about the potential danger of vaccinations, often among the New Age-y types who reject modern food production and believe Big Pharma exerts a sinister influence in medicine.
It was from these Americans that Kennedy drew support as he pursued a quixotic bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination last year. And some of those former Democrats followed Kennedy to the MAGA camp when Trump embraced Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
The trouble is, Kennedy has always been a charlatan, prone to amplify fringe science, unproven remedies and vaccine opposition throughout his public life. The nonprofit he formerly led, Children’s Health Defense, promoted the unfounded belief that childhood vaccines cause autism, among other ridiculousness.
That would be dangerous in any context if it prompted parents to skip the vaccinations that have virtually eradicated a host of deadly and debilitating childhood diseases, such as polio, the measles and mumps. But now Kennedy is the government official tasked with providing vaccine advisories and other important health information to Americans.
Nobody has done more to undercut trust in vaccines than Kennedy. He is a threat to public health, not its savior. Kennedy continues to make this country less safe and more vulnerable, and will do so as long as he remains in an office for which he is wholly unqualified.