On Thursday, the Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, making the anti-vaccine, anti-abortion conspiracy theorist — who was recently called a “predator” who “is addicted to attention and power” by his own cousin — the nation’s top health official. But, hey, RFK’s whole thing is that he wants to “Make America Healthy Again”; could that really be so bad? Yes, it could be.
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy said that every abortion is “a tragedy.” “I agree with [Donald Trump] that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year,” he told the Senate Finance Committee. “I agree with him that the states should control abortion.” According to RFK, one of the things Trump wants him to deal with is mifepristone, a medication that allows for the termination of a pregnancy in the privacy of one’s home. Despite the research indicating that mifepristone is completely safe, Kennedy says he has already received orders to “look at safety issues.”
RFK also used his time in front of the Senate to double down on his belief in a conspiracy theory that claims antidepressants are a cause of school shootings. He denied being anti-vaccine, despite the wealth of evidence that he is one of the figureheads of the anti-vaccine movement. (He has repeatedly claimed that vaccines lead to autism and once compared vaccinating children against COVID to the Catholic church abusing children.) He also really wants to get fluoride out of the water, which is one of the biggest public-health wins of the last 100 years.
At his now-infamous Madison Square Garden rally back in October, Trump promised that if elected, he would let RFK “go wild on health.” More specifically, he said, “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.” As head of HHS, RFK will be in charge of overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. While this could have catastrophic effects for children, women, old people, poor people, mentally ill people, and people who like having all of their teeth, at least one group can celebrate. Congrats to all the wild-eyed dudes who are hooked on nicotine pouches; your representation has arrived.