Donald Trump has made some bad choices for cabinet positions in his administration, placing America’s future in jeopardy with unqualified personnel to run government agencies. However, two of them stand out as particularly unfortunate- Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and Robert Kennedy, Jr as head of health and human services. That means that Kennedy will control the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Communicable Disease Center. Kennedy’s ideas flout scientific data in a number of areas, and he has no medical background to provide him with expertise in the field of health. He is actually a danger to the health of the American public with a number of the concepts he is promoting.
Probably the most publicity he receives, both adverse and positive, is because of his stand on vaccines. This emerged to a large degree with his opposition to the mRNA vaccines which were being used to fight Covid-19. Partially because of his preaching against vaccination for Covid, over 1.2 million Americans were known to have died of the disease, though the true mortality was undoubtedly much higher. On a per capita basis, the United States, had one of the highest mortality rates in the world. He has also claimed rather bizarrely that the Covid virus was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese, without any basis for his claim.
Kennedy says he is not against vaccines, but other words belie what he has said. He believes that childhood vaccinations MMR- measles, mumps and rubella, are responsible for autism and its rise over recent decades. This belief has been scientifically disproven, but Kennedy adheres to this idea. If he convinces parents to forego childhood vaccines, we will see polio re-emerge along with measles and whooping cough, both of which can kill children. Every other advanced nation promotes the use of childhood vaccines. Kennedy is also against fluoridation of our water supply which protects against tooth decay. He believes this may lower IQ in children and affect bone development. The data on this is not yet definitive. Kennedy would also like unpasteurized raw milk to be sold, which could cause various infectious diseases. He would like the FDA to stop warning of the dangers of raw milk as well.
In addition to the above ideas, Kennedy would like to have hydoxychloroquin available as a treatment for Covid though it has been shown to be of no value. He wants chelation therapy, which can be dangerous, to be utilized for autism, with the idea that mercury (unproven) is causing autism. Stem cell treatments can be helpful in certain diseases, but the FDA shut down clinics that were using stem cells for conditions where they were unwarranted. Kennedy would like the FDA to give more leeway to stem cell therapy.
Overall, we can see the disaster Kennedy could be as head of Health and Human services. However, some of his ideas about processed and ultra-processed foods being unhealthy do have value. The epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases are related to the popularity of fast foods and processed foods. A few good ideas by Kennedy do not make up for his ignorance and certainty regarding medical problems, and he should not be confirmed by the Senate for the head of Health and Human Services.
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Posted at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: CDC, Donald Trump, FDA, Health and Human Services, NIH, Robert Kennedy Jr, vaccines
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020