In the days of discoloration of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.The independent campaign for the president, he found himself on the phone with Donald TrumpA man he described in private as “a terrible human being”. Trump was almost killed by an assassin ball during a Pennsylvania rally, an act that struck near his home for Kennedy, whose father was murdered on the track of the presidential campaign. A few hours after the shooting, Kennedy participated in Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, saying that Trump’s “courage” that day was “inspiring”. Soon, he and Trump discussed their vaccination skepticism. In a video of the call that Kennedy’s son published online, Trump can be heard in Kennedy: “I would like you to do things, and I think it would be so good for you, and so big for You, and we are going to win. Shortly after, I spoke with the campaign director of Kennedy, his daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, who told me that, if Kennedy had to abandon the race and approve Trump, the idea that Kennedy became secretary to Health and human services in Trump’s administration would be “incredibly interesting”.
At the time, suggestion seemed almost riased. Over the past two decades, Kennedy has positioned itself as an American royal that has become a crusader of health, fighting against the powers of government and companies which, according to him, have regularly lied to the American public, food and security aquatic. “It is a holocaust, what it does to our country,” Kennedy said in 2015 about supposed harmful effects of children on children. He suggested that chemicals in tap water could modify the sex and sexual identities of children, and said that Covid was “targeted to attack the Caucasians and blacks” and that “the most immune people are Jews and Chinese Ashkenazi”. Even after Kennedy supported Trump, he did not seem particularly well positioned. In October, Howard Lunick, co -president of Trump’s transition team, said Kennedy “said no job for HHS” two weeks later, Trump appointed Kennedy to lead the department.
Kennedy will appear during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, which will determine if confirmed. The moment is seismic, both in the arc of Kennedy’s personal history – he has long believed in his destiny for greater things – and in American life. For the first time, a skeptic of science could remain at the head of one of the country’s critical posts, responsible for safeguarding public health.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services has a huge budget, projected as $ 1.8 billion in 2025, and includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. He also oversees the administration of Medicare and Medicaid and is, through the National Institutes of Health, which has a budget of more than forty-seven billions of dollars, one of the largest medical and behavioral research funds in the world. The delivery of the ministry is extended – it helps to reinstall refugees, houses detained by undocumented minors and administer funds to depleted families with children – all in order to improve the “health and well -being of all Americans ”.
Many HHS priorities are oriented around the prevention of infectious diseases through research and awareness of public health. Kennedy is particularly skeptical about these programs; In 2023, he told a crowd that, if she was elected president, he said to the NIH scientists: “We are going to give a break to infectious diseases for about eight years.” Kennedy’s underlying suspicions of traditional medical researchers arise from his decades of vaccination skepticism. In 2005, he wrote an article co-published by Roller And the living room in which he distorted the transcription of a meeting of doctors to support his thesis which they plotted with the pharmaceutical industry to push dangerous vaccines. (The article was then retracted by living room and withdrawn from the websites of the two publications.) A decade ago, he started working with what was a small anti-vaccin group, now called Children’s Health Defense, that Kennedy helped transform into a misinformation mastodon. According to statement by the New York Timesduring the deployment of Covid-19 vaccines, in 2021, Kennedy officially asked the FDA to cancel its authorization, an episode which raises questions on how Kennedy could act in the event of a pandemic on his watch. The scenario is far from hypothetical; There has been a recent alarm in the scientific community on the potential propagation of bird flu to humans.
The skepticism of the Kennedy vaccine could not only hinder the country’s defenses against a new pandemic, but could also allow the recirculation of diseases which were once under control. THE Times reported that one of the close advisers of Kennedy, Aaron Siri, laid A petition at the FDA in 2022 requesting that approval of the polio vaccine be revoked. (In response, Kennedy’s spokesperson said in a statement: “The polio vaccine should be available for the public and well studied.”) As HHS secretary, Kennedy would have the power to appoint Members to the advisory committee of vaccination practices, which helps the CDC to issue recommendations to states and insurers on vaccines to be covered. Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS secretary under Barack Obama, said that it was there that Kennedy could have great power. “He could make very solid recommendations to the states that they grant much more exemptions to parents, which considerably increases the number of children who could qualify to go to school without vaccines,” she declared on a recent podcast. “It could encourage states to simply make (vaccines) optional.”
Kennedy would also make serious modifications to the national vaccine injury compensation program, the so-called vaccination court, which is under the jurisdiction of HHS, the vaccine court was created within nineteen years drugs and reduce the vaccination rate; His intention was to cap compensation complaints and limit the responsibility of drug manufacturers. But the HHS secretary has the power to withdraw vaccines from the jurisdiction of the vaccine court. If Kennedy did, it could lead to drastic price increases for key vaccines while pharmaceutical products sought to cover their potential risks. In some cases, Kennedy’s past advocacy work could create conflicts of potential interests. As a reuters reported Earlier this month, Kennedy is a lawyer for prosecution in California against the creators of Gardasil, vaccination by HPV; The complainants claim that the drug has been marketed fraudulently, a strategy that seems to avoid the vaccine court.
Under Kennedy, the HHS would probably be more oriented towards the fight against chronic diseases, which, on the campaign track, called an “existential” threat to the country. Numerous Kennedy claims on the issue are saved by data: forty-two percent of American adults are obesity, about 11.6% suffer from diabetes and heart disease is the main cause of death in the country. In particular, Kennedy mocked ultra-transformed food and the complicity of the American regulatory system to allow harmful substances in our diet. “There are entire departments, such as the FDA nutrition service. . . It must go, which does not do their job, “said Kennedy recently. Earlier this month, the FDA prohibited red dye n ° 3 in food, which had been linked to cancer in laboratory rats; Kennedy was an supporter of a total ban on synthetic food dyes.
However, like many important personalities in the well-being movement, Kennedy has also pleaded for questionable solutions to the chronic disease crisis. He is a supporter of the use of beef tallow on seed oils such as corn and canola. Last October, in an article on X who represented his father, Robert F. Kennedy, eating a hamburger, Kennedy wrote that “seed oils are one of the motivals of the obesity epidemic”. Most experts say that seed oils are not a serious health risk. Kennedy also said that he wanted to put an end to the “aggressive abolition” of the FDA, among others, raw milk – which can transport pathogens, in particular the influenza of birds – and the use of the ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, two supposedly discredited treatments for Covid-19.
Kennedy’s enthusiasm for food health has earned him some applause on the part of the Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders told CBS in December that “what he said about the food industry was exactly correct. I think you have a food industry concerned with their profits, you can worry less about the health of the American people. I think they must be taken care of. The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, sent a congratulating tweet after Kennedy was nominated, saying that Kennedy “would help America again healthy by shaking HHS and FDA”, but Kennedy suggested that His project to reverse obesity and the chronic disease epidemic should be undertaken at the expense of other research. In the wake of Trump’s elections, for example, Kennedy said That Trump should draw and replace six hundred NIH employees immediately after taking office.
Kennedy’s confirmation remains uncertainty. He raised suspicion among some Republican senators with his support for reproductive rights; Others remain concerned about his positions on vaccines. In December, Senator Mitch McConnell, a survivor of Polio’s childhood, published a public declaration in support of the polio vaccine. “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven remedies are not only uninformed-they are dangerous,” he said. Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, told Fox News that Kennedy was “wrong” on vaccines. But Kennedy met the senators of the two parties. Senator John Fetterman, from Pennsylvania, recently appeared on “The View”, where he refused to share how he could vote on the appointment of Kennedy. “We, like all of you, will look at the audiences and see how things are going,” he said.
It is probably a hectic process. Kennedy has long history of drug abuse, infidelity and questionable elimination of animal carcasses. Tuesday, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, subject A burning statement to senators arguing that they refuse to his cousin the post of cabinet: “There is a lack of government, management or relevant medical. His opinions on vaccines are dangerous and deliberately poorly informed. These facts alone should be disqualifying. But it has personal qualities linked to this work which, for me, pose even more important concerns. »With a reference to Kennedy’s long -standing passion for falconry, Caroline added:“ I knew Bobby all my life; We grew up together. It is not surprising that he keeps birds of prey as pet because Bobby himself is a predator. . . . I looked at his young brothers and cousins to follow him on the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage and his dormitory have always been the center of the action where drugs were available, and he liked to show how he put chickens and mice in a mixer to feed his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence. »♦