RFK, Jr. has proven time and again that he’s the wrong person for the job
Never has there been a better example of “No good deed goes unpunished.” If ever there were a good deed over the last 100 years, it’s encapsulated in one word: vaccine. If ever the Divine blessing of human creativity came to greater benefit for humankind than in the invention of vaccines that have saved countless millions of lives, we don’t know what it is.
Now, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, is trying to turn back the clock. You know what the problem is? Not too many Americans are old enough to remember what measles and mumps meant. Measles could mean death. Mumps could mean infertility. “Measles.” “Mumps.” They’ve become abstractions, statistics, vacuities, not the specter of severe illness and fright they once were.
Perhaps no single person has done more to implant vaccine skepticism than RFK, Jr. If vaccines are to be shunned because in extraordinarily rare circumstances they don’t work, then no one should board aircraft because, in extraordinarily rare instances, they crash.
It is true that the number of recommended vaccines for kids today far exceeds the standard protocol decades ago. It can get confusing. But certainly with respect to vaccines against contagious diseases, we should not tolerate, as RKF, Jr. does, parents being able to “make their own choices” any more than we would tolerate travelers being able to “make their own choices” about airline safety protocols. Why? Herd immunity. A choice not to vaccinate is, for many vaccines, a choice to harm others.
Are there extraordinarily rare cases of children who, medically, should not be vaccinated? That is for a physician, not a politician, to decide. Are there cases of children who, ideologically, should not be vaccinated? That’s a wholly different question.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a Trump appointee with sterling scientific training — was fired because she said that RFK, Jr. was trying to weaken public health protections. She said that Kennedy asked her to approve, in advance of knowing what they were, the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel. That’s not science. That’s group think. She said: “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.” A committee’s findings carry weight, of course; but the head of the CDC carries more weight, and that’s who was asked to, and refused to, approve the recommendations in advance.
Again, the CDC head who said this was not a Biden appointee, but a Trump appointee.
The list lengthens. Kennedy admired the COVID-19 vaccine when it was devised five years ago. But he doesn’t like it anymore, and shut down related research — an unwise move for the next pandemic.
This list keeps lengthening. Kennedy criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic related to lockdowns. But the person in charge of the CDC under Kennedy was not the person in charge of the CDC during the pandemic. Kennedy’s statements undermine public confidence in the country’s major health adviser.
Now we come to the National Institutes of Health. It’s in turmoil. High-ranking people have left or been fired. It is true that during the pandemic the resort to “science” was abused to justify some public policies not firmly rooted in science, but to attack the major American pillars of public health — vaccines, the CDC, the NIH — is itself a public policy not firmly rooted in science or good public administration. Any agency as big as NIH, with its $48 billion budget, is going to have pockets of incompetence and errors. That’s true across government.But the administration has killed hundreds of research grants and seems poised to gut the system.
President Trump put Robert F. Kennedy in charge. President Trump has no problem firing other government employees. It’s time for a new secretary of health and human services.
