Fact Checking the RFK Jr Confirmation Hearings and More Questions for Kennedy
Saying he wasn't anti-vaccine was not the only lie Kennedy told...
The first confirmation hearing for RFK Jr as US Senators consider his nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services went as expected.
Except for admitting that he thinks Lyme disease is a militarily engineered bio-weapon (the Tucker Carlson Lyme disease lab leak conspiracy theory), he denied believing or saying many of the things we have him on record as saying.
Fact Checking the RFK Jr Confirmation Hearings
Specifically, even though he is on record saying it, Kennedy denied comparing the CDC’s work to Nazi death camps and sexual abusers in Catholic church and that many of them belong in jail.
Again, he also repeatedly denied being anti-vaccine, even though most people consider him the leader of the modern anti-vaccine movement.
Interestingly, we learned that not only did he start and run an organization that took in millions for pushing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, Kennedy accually recruited parents for a law firm that sued vaccine manufacturers, with Kennedy getting a healthy percentage of any money won in those lawsuits!
What else?
He once again denied having anything to do with the measles epidemic on Samoa.
And this time, he went so far as to deny that many of those children in Samoa even had measles!
Surprisingly, Kennedy didn’t deny that the H5N1 causes bird flu! That’s surprising because he has actually flirted with germ theory denialism in the past… Remember, Kennedy very recently said that “There are much better candidates than HIV for what causes AIDS.”
Kennedy is also wrong when he talks about:
the US having the highest COVID death count among developed countries. While the US had a lot of COVID cases and deaths, our case-fatality ratio (the number of people with COVID who died) was lower than other developed countries.
the number of kids with chronic diseases. Anti-vaccine activists like to push the idea that kids are sicker than ever to try and make you think that vaccines are dangerous. When you hear folks talk about all of these kids with chronic diseases, remember that nearly 90% of today’s parents would describe their children’s health as excellent or very good!
that food additives are the main cause of chronic diseases and that people in other countries that don’t use these food additives are so much healthier than folks in the United States, even though most of these chronic diseases are life-style diseases caused by not getting enough exercise and eating too many high calorie, unhealthy foods.
how many people die with measles. It is not 1 in 10,000 as Kennedy said in his hearing. It is closer to 1-2 in 1,000 cases!
Surprised?
Of course not.
You kind of expect that folks will say what they have to say in these types of confirmation hearings, right?
Questions for Next Confirmation Hearings for RFK Jr
So what’s next?
Another confirmation hearing!
This time it is before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.
Some questions we can hope these Senators will ask Kennedy include:
his views on vaccines and autism, knowing that he has previously said that vaccines cause autism, going so far as to say “They get the shot. That night they have a fever of 103. They go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” And of course, he wrote the retracted article Deadly Immunity and the book Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak: Mercury Toxicity in Vaccines and the Political, Regulatory, and Media Failures That Continue to Threaten Public Health.
his views on Paul Offit, a well-respected vaccinologist, who Kennedy once called a Nazi war criminal
in attacking COVID vaccines, why, in the first confirmation hearing, did Kennedy say that COVID had “zero risk” for 6-year-old children, when we know that hundreds of younger school age children died with COVID?
why he often targets minority communities with his anti-vaccine messaging?
why he exploits dead children to push his anti-vaccine agenda?
why he thinks 5G cell networks and WiFi are dangerous?
why he thinks taking additives out of foods will eliminate life-style diseases?
is the simple fact that many other countries have universal health care a bigger factor in their having better health care outcomes than food additives?
Also see Questions for RFK Jr.’s Senate Confirmation: Part I, II, III, and IV from Paul Offit and these key characteristics that any health agency nominee should embody from the Infectious Disease Society of America.
And no, none of the conspiracy theories he has long pushed have actually been proven to be true. From fluoride to red dye, these are still just ideas he pushes to scare people.
What’s truly scary?
As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy would be able to implement all of his ideas and conspiracy theories!
Tell your Senators: Oppose Kennedy for Health and Human Services Secretary
References
I Watched a Week’s Worth of RFK Jr.’s Fear-Inducing “TV Channel”
5 of RFK Jr.’s most controversial views. https://thehill.com/homenews/4993660-robert-f-kennedy-trump-health-human-services/
RFK Jr.’s Conspiracy Theories: Here’s What Trump’s Pick For Health Secretary Has Promoted. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/11/15/rfk-jrs-conspiracy-theories-heres-what-trumps-pick-for-health-secretary-has-promoted/
Kennedy faces tough questioning on vaccine views at HHS confirmation hearing. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/kennedy-faces-tough-questioning-vaccine-views-hhs-confirmation-hearing
RFK Jr Backtracks Anti-Vax Statements in First Part of Contentious Confirmation Hearing. https://healthpolicy-watch.news/rfk-jr-backtracks-anti-vax-statements-in-first-part-of-contentious-hearing/
I agree with almost all of what you have outlined above except one thing... The US has done very badly compared with most 1st world countries with respect to recorded coVid deaths "excess deaths". I am (of course) looking at death rates. Useful comparisons are Great Britain (similar rates), Canada (the most relevant I think - and with death rates that are about HALF the US rates), Australia and New Zealand have even lower death rates & excess death rates than Canada.
Canada is especially telling because it is culturally similar to the US, and because Vax rates were higher, and death rates were so much lower.