Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., already under scrutiny for attempting to fire the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now attacking the CDC for information on its website that he wrongly claims characterizes “abortion” as one of the ten greatest advances in medical science — while also appearing to suggest vaccines and fluoridation should not be on that list.
There are several versions of the list, one titled, “Ten Great Public Health Achievements — United States, 1900-1999,” and dated April 1999 — more than a quarter century ago.
It includes: “Vaccination, Motor-vehicle safety, Safer workplaces, Control of infectious diseases, Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke, Safer and healthier foods, Healthier mothers and babies, Family planning, Fluoridation of drinking water, and Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard.”
Abortion does not appear on any of the lists NCRM was able to locate.
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One portion mentions contraception, but not abortion.
Secretary Kennedy, a promoter of conspiracy theories — especially about vaccines — on Thursday refused to discuss his attempt to fire the CDC Director. He told Fox News, “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on a personnel issue.”
“What I will say is, you know, there is, President Trump has very, very ambitious hopes for CDC right now. CDC has problems. We saw the misinformation coming out of COVID.”
“They got the testing wrong, they got the social distancing, the masks, the school closures that did so much harm to the American people,” he charged.
“Today on CDC’s website right now, they list the 10 top advanced greatest advances in medical science, and one of them is abortion,” Kennedy inaccurately claimed. “The other is fluoridation, another is vaccine.”
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STAT News reported on Thursday that “Kennedy’s brief critique of the CDC ranged from incontrovertible missteps by the agency, such as its failure to handle the onslaught of Covid testing at the beginning of the pandemic, to issues such as masking, where there is still scientific debate, to issues such as fluoridation, which is broadly viewed by the medical community as beneficial. He also appeared to leave key context out of his description of the list of great medical achievements on the CDC’s website.”
Kennedy also told Fox News viewers that the CDC’s “priorities” need to be examined, and denounced what he alleged was a “malaise” at the nation’s top health agency.
“This agency, the gold standard science [sic] and do what it was when we were growing up, which was the most respected health agency in the world.”
In 2024, The New York Times characterized Kennedy as a “leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories,” and someone who has “promoted a conspiracy theory that coronavirus vaccines were developed to control people via microchips,” and “endorsed the false notion that antidepressants are linked to school shootings.”
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