After his November election win, Donald Trump put forward a number of outrageously unqualified nominees who lacked any experience or skills for key positions in his Cabinet. They included Fox News TV hosts, accused rapists, alleged alcohol and drug abusers, admirers of despots and dictators, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and a dangerous promoter of anti-science views.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has for years led an international campaign promoting mistrust in vaccines, which are proven to have saved millions of lives. RFK Jr., who ended his own presidential bid as an Independent in August, threw his support to Trump in exchange for a pledge from Trump to give him the power to guide U.S. healthcare policy.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. demonstrated little knowledge of how the vast U.S. federal health system he would oversee works and repeatedly lied about his past, well-documented anti-science and anti-vaccination beliefs. RFK Jr. has been accused of contributing to a deadly outbreak of measles in American Samoa. After he visited the island in 2019 to discourage people from taking the measles vaccine an outbreak followed, causing the deaths of 83, mostly children. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, distinguished professor of public health at Hunter College, who talks about the danger RFK Jr. poses to U.S. public health if he should be confirmed by the Senate.
DR. STEPHANIE WOOLHANDLER: RFK says a lot of things, probably half of them, you and I might agree with, like, you know, let’s improve Americans’ diet. Let’s have them all get exercise. But half of them are totally crazy. But as a physician and as a scientist, how do we tell the difference between a good idea and something that’s totally crazy? Well, we have to rely on facts and science.
And RFK has shown a total disregard for facts and science. You know, he’s still going around spouting the view that vaccines cause autism. There was one report a couple of decades ago that said it might cause autism. Not only were there numerous reports subsequently where scientists looked at it and said, “No, that is not true. Vaccines are not the cause of autism. We’re sorry, we don’t really know the cause, but vaccines are not the cause.”
That was very clear from the science that that original report was false. And in fact, it turned out that that data, on the original report was partially faked and the paper was actually retracted by the Lancet that had originally published it.
So that’s what the science said. You know, science can get things wrong. But, we don’t have a better way of telling truth from fiction. And we cannot advance public health without trying to figure out truth and rejecting the fiction.
And that is what RFK has been totally unwilling to do. When information comes out that says, for instance, vaccines are not the cause of autism, he ignores that because he just chooses to ignore it.
You know, I think the issues with raw milk, raw milk was very dangerous at one point in history because it carried tuberculosis. That’s not currently a problem. But, right at the moment, we’re dealing with the threat of a major bird flu pandemic. And even though we call it bird flu, one of the main animals affected by it are dairy cows.
And until we know where this bird flu thing is going, if it’s going to turn into a major pandemic for humans or if it’s going to be contained, we have no business promoting things like raw milk. Raw milk means the milk that has not been processed with heat to kill the bacteria and viruses in it.
But here again, RFK has been totally oblivious to facts and science that while you are facing a threat of a serious viral illness that’s transmitted from cows, you probably need to heat your milk before you feed it to children and adults.
He’s been totally oblivious to that science. And that’s the problem. Trump himself is totally oblivious to science. That’s bad enough in Trump, but we’re talking about the most important health official in the United States, in some ways, the most important health official in the world. And Trump is nominating a guy who doesn’t really believe in facts and science.
And that’s the real problem, you know, not his specific opinions. Or he might be wrong about this or wrong about that, but that he has just shown that he has no real understanding of science and the facts.
SCOTT HARRIS: Dr. Woolhandler, if RFK Jr. should win confirmation and become Health and Human Services Secretary, what powers would he have to influence public health policy across the United States that most concerns you?
What could he translate in terms of his own belief systems, wrong or right, into our system of health care across the country that concerns you most?
DR. WOOLHANDLER: I mean, one of the things that seems likely with the Medicaid and Medicare programs given Trump’s other behaviors, is whatever billionaire donors want, that’s going to be government policy.
And unfortunately, billionaire donors might, for instance, want the private insurance industry to totally take over Medicare and Medicaid. And I’m sure RFK is going to do that if Trump tells them to. I mean, Trump’s policies are basically based on whatever billionaire hands him an extremely large check and whispers something into their ear or his ear about what he wants.
So, I think RFK has said, you know, Mr. President Trump’s going to be my boss. I’ll do what he says. And I think that means that we’re going to see a health care system that operates in the interests of billionaire donors and not in the interest of the health of the American people.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler (19:24) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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