Among the many unqualified nominees President Trump has proposed for cabinet posts, I believe that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses the greatest threat to the health and well being of the citizens of the United States. Trump nominated Kennedy to be Health and Human Services secretary and the senate confirmation is imminent.
To be fair, Kennedy is actually a mixed bag. He promotes dietary ideas that are important for a nation whose citizens are generally overweight and unfit and he seeks to reign in the excesses of “big pharma”.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
However, setting aside Kennedy’s fundamental lack of basic qualifications for the role, his history of questioning vaccine efficacy and promoting debunked conspiracies of standard childhood vaccines is 100% disqualifying. These vaccines have saved millions of lives and are the single greatest medical achievement of the 20th century. Even the editors at the Murdoch owned, right wing, pro-Trump New York Post are able to see this with crystal clarity.
New York Post editorial
As it is, vaccine hesitancy is wrecking havoc on the health of US children. Cases of diseases long thought to be eradicated, like measles, mumps and polio, are popping up around the country and vaccination rates are down. An extreme example is in Ocean County, New Jersey not far from where I grew up, where the childhood vaccination rate is down to 85%. That is well below the level needed for the “herd immunity” which protects entire populations, including the most vulnerable who, for various reasons, cannot be vaccinated or for whom the vaccines aren’t effective. Even if Kennedy does nothing explicit to limit vaccines, which is unlikely, the mere elevation of such a vocal anti-vaxxer to the most important health position in the country will embolden the growing cohort of parents refusing to vaccinate their children.
I’m not looking to enter the vaccine debate. It’s pointless. There’s a worldwide pandemic of impaired critical thinking which, combined with ever growing social media echo chambers, is making far too many people impervious to basic, logical, evidence-based scientific thinking. I could include dozens of links from seasoned, brilliant experts in the fields of biology, virology, infectious diseases, etc. but it’s just not worth it. The reasoning therein would bounce right off the anti-vaxxers’ mental armor of disinformation which is proliferating into every corner of the internet and is often based on an array of logical fallacies.
So, if you’re one of those people, while I hold no personal animus toward you, I ask you to please scroll on. We’re not going to change each others’ minds.
For the rest of you, and I so wish I had wider reach for this reason alone, please take a moment to contact your senators and beseech them to vote against the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for the cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. I truly believe that lives are at stake, especially the lives of our precious children.
