Robert KennedyThe Senate hearing to review his nomination to head Health and Human Services is scheduled to begin next Wednesday. still, Donald Trump He is not waiting for his nominee to be confirmed before launching a full-scale war on public health.
For weeks now, some Democrats have tentatively expressed hope that the vaccine naysayer and former Democrat won’t be too bad, noting Kennedy’s statements about promoting healthy eating As evidence that he may have good qualities. Kennedy’s critics pointed this out Empty rhetoric about nutrition and exercise is a regular ploy from anti-vaccine activists. They aim to make their hatred of preventive medicine seem “reasonable,” but they are insincere, as evidenced by a lack of interest in doing anything substantive to improve public health.
Kennedy’s skeptics were quickly proven right.
McDonald’s-loving Trump has not issued even a whisper of a move toward “better school lunches,” but on the real meat of Kennedy’s agenda — waging all-out war on the public health service — Trump is moving full steam ahead. One of his first actions in office was to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, which Trump has hated since 2020, when they announced their withdrawal from the WHO. Trump continued to undermine his efforts to portray the Covid-19 pandemic as a “hoax.” Kennedy hated the WHO for the longest time, and Not only because of his opposition to global vaccination campaigns Which saves the lives of countless people. He and his organizing partners have fought the World Health Organization’s efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, improve access to contraception, or protect LGBT people’s access to health care. Kennedy refuses to accept that HIV causes AIDSInstead of blaming what he imagines to be “lifestyle” choices among gay men, though, Worldwide, most people infected with HIV are women and girls.
As many people warned, Kennedy’s priority would never be “healthy food,” but making sure that infectious diseases could spread more easily at home and abroad. On the “at home” front, Trump has already launched the Kennedy agenda, which is objectively pro-virus. As Science magazine reported, Trump imposed A slew of restrictions were imposed on the National Institutes of Health, “including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review committees. Officials also ordered a communications pause, a hiring freeze, and an indefinite travel ban.”
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A cancellation could destroy a significant number of annual research grants, which could slow or stop important studies in treating and preventing disease. This is also in keeping with Kennedy’s open hostility toward any scientist working on infectious disease prevention. When he was still a hot presidential candidate, Kennedy spoke at an anti-vaccine conference He promised that when he was in charge of the National Institutes of Health, “we would give infectious diseases a break for about eight years.” By this he meant that it would prevent research into the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Trump’s obstruction of the National Institutes of Health’s ability to fund infectious disease research sounds a lot like the first step in Kennedy’s scheme to waste the medical infrastructure to protect people from such diseases.
Kennedy’s bizarre hatred of germ theory is not the only item on his anti-health agenda. A website operated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to inform American women of their reproductive rights It was deleted just hours after Trump was sworn in on Monday. The site not only helps women wanting an abortion identify places where it is still legal to do so. She reassured women that birth control is still legal and is mandatory for most insurance plans to cover it. Kennedy sometimes makes pro-choice noises in publicBut his actions suggest he is eager to please the religious right on the issue. He has been meeting with anti-choice Republicans and appears to be amendable to their opinions. that it It expressed its willingness to move forward with the 2025 project plan To revoke FDA approval of abortion pills.
All of this may seem like esoteric politics to most Americans, but it is tied to an anti-health agenda that could significantly impact the ability of millions of people to get basic health care. The New York Times reported on Thursday “Republicans in Congress are passing an extensive list of ideas to cover the cost of the massive tax cut and anti-immigration bill.” At the top of the list? What they hope will be a $100 billion cut to Medicaid, The program now covers nearly 1 in 5 Americans. Likewise, billionaire Elon Musk, with his dubious “government efficiency” study group, Dramatic cuts to Veterans Affairs have been consideredAs a way to lower taxes on rich people like him.
These programs are so popular that they create a political firewall that could destroy plans to deprive millions of people of health care. But Trump and Musk’s hostility to federal employees is already doing damage. Veterans Affairs on Thursday was forced to issue an exception to the White House’s federal hiring freeze for health care jobs at the department after days of anger and consternation. And in one of the most satisfying moments of the week, MAGA influencer John Basham felt this truth. who took to Twitter to demand his wife’s nursing job offer be taken backwhich was initially canceled by Trump’s order.
It’s good to see someone who deserves it suffer this way, but unfortunately, it points to a larger issue: This hiring freeze will interfere with the lives of those who depend on federal funding. Not that Trump will care, no matter how much whining his voters let out on Twitter.
Trump also signed an executive order this week To end President Joe Biden’s successful efforts to lower prices for several common pharmaceutical drugs. The movement in drug prices ties together the thread that ties Kennedy and Trump’s views together: health care should be a privilege of the wealthy, not a basic human right. Kennedy’s vague words about healthy eating may sound good on paper. In practice, it creates an excuse to deny low-income people access to health care, by saying that they deserve to get sick because they supposedly haven’t taken care of themselves. This is why Kennedy was so hostile, not just to vaccines, but to any recognition of infectious diseases. It is very difficult to blame the victim when the disease is caused by a virus. If confirmed with the Department of Health and Human Services, this position will prevail. Talking about healthy eating certainly won’t translate into helping people eat better. This would be just an excuse to blame people’s “lifestyles” when public health deteriorated under Kennedy.
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