'A lot of deaths': Health experts say RFK Jr. at HHS is 'a disaster waiting to happen'

14 November 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be his nominee to helm the Department of Heath and Human Services (HHS).

Kennedy — who ran as an independent in the 2024 presidential election before dropping out and endorsing Trump — was one of Trump's most visible surrogates in the final months of the campaign cycle, and Trump promised repeatedly to put him in a high-ranking role in his Cabinet overseeing public health. Scientists, health experts and journalists are all warning that putting Kennedy in charge of all U.S. health agencies will be harmful in myriad ways.

"RFK Jr. is one of the most dangerous, misguided, and hypocritical figures in the global 'wellness" movement,'" journalist Mike Rothschild wrote in a post to the social media platform Bluesky. "He has said that "there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective." He has no idea how science or chemistry work. This is a disaster waiting to happen."

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich observed that RFK Jr. — the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy — is likely to undermine his uncle's legacy, as he signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in 1962. And University of Michigan health professor Pam Herd warned that RFK Jr.'s documented opposition to childhood vaccines will create a significant risk to public health, and that future generations of children could be at risk of contracting diseases they would otherwise be protected from due to vaccines.

"The one part of the pandemic that Trump handled well was fast tracking the vaccine development," Herd wrote. "We now have someone in charge who's likely to generate new outbreaks (e.g. measles) and controls all the agencies (NIH, CDC, FDA) that are needed to address old and new outbreaks."

If he is confirmed, RFK Jr. would oversee agencies in charge of researching and developing new medicines and cures to disease. Northwestern University law professor Paul Gowder opined that there would be "a lot of deaths" if RFK Jr. was able to enact his agenda at HHS. Pulaski Institution CEO Alan Elrod lamented that all of that research may be at risk if Trump is successful in elevating RFK Jr.

"Truly remarkable what we are potentially set to squander as a nation," he wrote on Bluesky. "RFK will gut and degrade the most sophisticated public health research bodies in the world."

Author Faine Greenwood — a researcher at the Signal Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative — wasn't as convinced that RFK Jr. would be effective in dismantling public health institutions. Greenwood noted that the pharmaceutical industry has been "bathing in vast seas of money thanks to the MRNA revolution, and I do not see them letting Captain Brain Worms light that all on fire without a face-eating fight."

RFK Jr.'s nomination is jus the latest in a tumultuous week of announcements from the President-elect as he names his choices for his second term Cabinet. Dartmouth College political scientist Brendan Nyhan commented on the flurry of controversial nominations, like former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for Attorney General, Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) for Director of National Intelligence.

"Just so we're clear on where we are: The President: an authoritarian who attempted a coup. A Secretary of Defense who defends war crimes. [An] Attorney General credibly accused of sex crimes A Director of National Intelligence who defends Putin and Assad. An HHS director who opposes vaccines," Nyhan wrote.

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