RFK, Jr. and the End of Expertise

[Nevilledog]

https://quillette.com/2025/04/02/rfk-jr-and-the-end-of-expertise-mmr-hpv-covid-vaccines/

During the Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, it became clear that the man nominated by Donald Trump to become Secretary of Health and Human Services was completely unfit to run America’s leading public-health agency. Now that he has been confirmed, it is time to reckon with the likely consequences of that decision.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. insists he’s not anti-vaccine and that he just wants to ensure that vaccines are safe. But defending his a priori conviction that vaccines are unsafe requires him to ignore the results of large, rigorous studies indicating otherwise and to rely on bad evidence and debunked claims that support his preferred position. No medical intervention is entirely without risk, but any risk incurred by the administration of a licensed vaccine pales in comparison to the risk posed by the disease it addresses.

But Kennedy knows that his inflammatory statements about the dangers of vaccines will be more compelling to many people than dry recitations of rigorous studies demonstrating their efficacy and safety. And his pronouncements on health and disease display boundless hubris combined with an uncanny ability to be wrong. He routinely employs absolutist language as he dismisses well-established facts in favour of preposterous and unsupported claims:

* During a 2024 podcast, Kennedy said, “The polio vaccine contained a virus called simian virus 40, SV40. It’s one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man. In fact, it’s used now by scientists around the world to induce tumors in rats and guinea pigs in labs. But it was in that vaccine—98 million people who got that vaccine, and my generation got it, and now you’ve had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that killed many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did. So if you say to me, ‘The polio vaccine, was it effective against polio?’ I’m going to say, ‘Yes.’ And if you say to me, ‘Did it kill more people … did it cause more death than averted?’ I would say, ‘I don’t know, because we don’t have the data on that.’”

* During the same podcast, Kennedy said, “I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” During an interview with PBS four months later, Kennedy was confronted with these words and flatly denied speaking them.

* During a 2020 debate with Alan Dershowitz, Kennedy said, “The proposition and the theology that smallpox and polio were abolished due to vaccination is controversial. That is not a proposition that is universally accepted.”

* During a press event at a New York City restaurant in 2023, Kennedy declared: “I know a lot now about bioweapons, because I’ve been doing a book on it for the past two and a half years. ... In fact, COVID-19—there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to COVID-19 are—because of the genetic structure, the genetic differentials of different races of the ACE2 receptor, COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. Now we don’t know if it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show, y’know, the racial and ethnic differential impact for that. We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons. And we are developing ethnic bioweapons. That’s what all those labs in the Ukraine are about—they’re collecting Russian DNA, they’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”

* During a meeting with Louisiana lawmakers on 6 December 2021, Kennedy called the COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

*snip*

[KT2000]

1. He represents to me

the person who learns a little about alternative medicine (AM) and thinks he knows everything - with some paranoia about mainstream medicine thrown in. He is engaging in a war against mainstream medicine using misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the research.
His ego says - I know better than everyone else and I have an enemy to prove it. This is an attitude that gathers followers. Currently it is called MAHA - Make America Healthy Again. He fancies himself as the leader. We are losing progressive voters with this issue.

[haele]

5. It's not just "MAHA" -

It's MWAHA - Mendicious Woo-peddlers Are Happy Again.
Watch your wallets and pray you're just getting a placebo and not an actual poison.

[dalton99a]

2. RFK Jr. is all we need - he is a walking depository of medical knowledge

gleaned from watching TV shows

[EYESORE 9001]

3. More like a walking suppository

One may feel inclined to take this reprobate’s medical advice and shove it…

[eppur_se_muova]

4. "Experts ?? Pfffft ! Whadda THEY know ?"

My favorite Homer Simpson quote, ever.