AThe Méricans are wary of modern medicine and the status quo look at the appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jr to the Secretary of Health and Social Services (HHS) with a mixture of joy, astonishment and skepticism.
Last week, Kennedy used his confirmation audience before the Senate finance committee to demonstrate how much his wellness program, Make America in good health and Trumpism had merged – Often to the delight of supporters.
“I still lean conservative, but when Kennedy came – it was the icing on the cake,” said Hilda Labrada Gore, a mother of four of 63 all smiled after. In business, she goes through Holistic Hilda. She said she had no health insurance.
“We are looking for pills and prescriptions, programs and doctors for good health, when this can be found through much simpler ancestral health.”
Culturally in a world far from Washington, Amy Fewell spoke of her family property, refuge of Liberty. Mother of three children waiting for a fourth, she lives in Rural Virginia, her schools at home her children and directs Homesteaders of America.
“Most of our family has not seen a doctor for more than a decade because we just don’t have to do so – we are healthy people,” said Fewell. For her, the most worrying thing about the confirmation hearing was Kennedy distancing himself from anti-vaccine opinions.
“One of the things I think that libertarian Christian mothers are concerned is to hear Robert F Kennedy say:” Well, if science shows that vaccines are safe, then, yes, we should agree With that. Just because science says it’s ok – I always want the option to say no … We don’t believe that it is God’s design for our life. »»
Kennedy has long supported the support of naturopaths, the supplements industry, Consecutive Christian Movement – many of which are not only wary of vaccines but modern medicine.
“It’s our blow,” said Karen Howard that she continued to think of the appointment of Kennedy. She is executive director of the Organic and Natural Health Association, a commercial group for the “Nustraceuticals” and the complement industry. The group approved Kennedy at the end of January.
“No administration has ever publicly supported what we are doing – never,” said Howard. She said that she had never considered an administration like Trump who set up a friendly candidate with her business, and that she feels “neither” republican nor a democrat “benefits the work that I do”.
Labrada Gore, Fewell and Howard illustrate a new powerful mixture of well -being and conservatism – people who have adopted alternative lifestyles formerly associated with the left, politically support the right and defend a mixture of disorder and potentially harmful.
“Previously, he was considered the whole hippie and left -wing movement of the 60s, which is funny, because the property has nothing to do with politics – until it does,” said Fewell .
Howard also admitted that “we are definitively on the sidelines” by approving Kennedy. “We are not common even among our own peers organizations.”
Influencers such as Labrada Gore grow in less screen time, more exercise and fewer chemicals, dyes and preservatives in food supply. Other favored causes are implacally resistant to evidence of potential damage – as Unregulated supplements,, raw milk And Refusal of the vaccine.
Like a growing minority Republicans – about 20%, according to Gallup – Labrada Gore now estimates that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent.
“They are more dangerous,” she said, recognizing that this is a “spicy” perspective-the overwhelming majority Americans still support infant vaccinations.
His theory is that vaccines go “directly in your blood circulation” and “giving it an easy path to bypass the defenses of the body”. She then married what many researchers consider a difficult misunderstanding of the danger of measles, a disease rarely encountered now by the Americans. The measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, but has since made a resurgence in the midst of vaccination hesitation.
“Certain diseases such as measles – these are a kind of natural rites of passage, I would say, so that children develop naturally. It’s like an obstacle, and when they do, they are stronger afterwards, ”said Labrada Gore.
Today, the CDC believes that measles kills between 1-2 people by 1,000 Malade – Although mortality varies according to the country. It is higher than historic rates, which are generally considered to be an underestimation. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the risk adverse reaction of the measles vaccine at about one million. It is widely accepted that measles vaccines have saved millions of lives worldwide.
According to a Large systematic reviewThe measles vaccine, mumps and rubella (MMR) is not associated with swelling of the brain, autistic spectrum disorders, “cognitive delay, type 1 diabetes, asthma, dermatitis / eczema, hay fever, leukemia , multiple sclerosis, walking and bacterial disorders or viral infections ”.
In particular, many supporters of Kennedy are not stretched by conflicts and suggestions that have left dismayed democrats. For example, Kennedy marked Maha for use in the supplements industry. Howard said that she was “a little surprised” but that “from the point of view of companies, it certainly makes sense”.
Orn his suggestions that he could cut Medicaid, Labrada Gore said: “I don’t know many people on Medicaid, so I don’t really have a point of reference.”
If Kennedy is confirmed to lead HHS – an agency with a Budget of 1.8 TMD And a discount on health insurance for health, biomedical research and the investigation and confinement of epidemics of infectious diseases – it would take place despite the feverish opposition.
“My point of view is, and I am a Christian in the south … It is my duty to be vaccinated because I should help those who cannot help themselves – those who have compromised or who Do not have the resources to be vaccinated, “said Kristin Matthews, a member of the Baker Institute for Public Policy from Rice University in Houston, Texas. Her recent report Documed bills to limit access to vaccines supported by state republicans.
“You cannot be a good Christian and then want to jump on all vaccines for no reason – if you have as a medical reason, I support it completely.”
Public health researchers,, clinicians And Even his own cousins worked to stop the appointment. Their feelings are summarized by a declaration by the defender of consumers and co -president of public citizen Rob Weissman: “There is not a single senator who believes that Robert F Kennedy is qualified to be secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services And no senator should vote for his confirmation.
Confirmation can also arrive in the middle of Silence noted of some of the most powerful groups in Washington, such as the American Medical Association and Phré. In 2024, pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups spent Congress of $ 293 million – More than any industry long -term.
There are few Republican skeptics. Those who do, as Polio survivor And the Kentucky senator, Mitch McConnell, may not be enough to stop Kennedy’s confirmation.
Olga Irwin, an AIDS 57 -year -old patient and activist from Youngstown, Ohio, also attended Kennedy’s audience. Irwin, who has used a wheelchair, has lived with HIV for 25 years. Like most people, she spent a short time lingering on her disappearance.
This changed last week after attending Kennedy’s confirmation hearing.
She fears the history of HIV-Denialism and the suggestions of cutting Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the low income on which she and 79 million other Americans count. Without this, his prescriptions would cost about $ 7,000 a month.
She called her husband after the hearing and said, “Sam, I’m going to die.” Not because I don’t take my medication – I’m not going to have access to it. I imagine my death.