Who is RFK Jr and what could be his top priorities?
Robert F Kennedy Jr., the man Donald Trump nominated to oversee key US health agencies, rose to national prominence as one of the country’s most persistent and influential vaccine deniers.
Kennedy, 70, endorsed Trump after ending his own third-party bid for the presidency in August. He is the son of former Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of President John F Kennedy.
Trained as an environmental lawyer, RFK Jr rose to fame for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning scientific research – often positioning himself as someone better qualified than scientists to understand disease and epidemiology.
He has amplified baseless claims that vaccines are linked to autism in children, promoted the false idea that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, baselessly linked certain antidepressants to an increase in school shootings, and the use of a certain herbicide with an increase in the number of young people. coming out as transgender.
A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of the top two funders of anti-vaccination ads on Facebook. In 2021, the Center for Combating Digital Hate named him as one of the twelve largest spreaders of online disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.
In particular, Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccination group he led until he became a presidential candidate, flooded American Samoa with vaccine misinformation ahead of a devastating measles outbreak there in 2019.
The position to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requires Senate approval. If approved, experts say vaccines “will be the first topic on the table.”
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that even if government policy remains unchanged, if authorities speak out against vaccines under the imprimatur of the federal government, “it discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated.” and at that point it is just as bad as not having a vaccine at all.”
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report showing that fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season, and fewer than half had received flu shots.
Vaccinations for children have also fallen since the pandemic. Doubts about vaccinations and misinformation were both cited by researchers as important reasons.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago — how many children died every year from polio, whooping cough and measles,” Osterholm said. “We will see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”
RFK Jr also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments.
He has opposed processed foods and the use of herbicides such as Roundup and has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feed companies that dominate the industry.
He wants to put an end to the “revolving door” of employees who have worked for pharmaceutical companies in the past or who leave the government service to work for that industry.
He also wants to lay off 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research, and replace them with 600 new workers.