It’s not too late for Senate Republicans to start correcting the worst mistake they’ve made this 12 months: confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Well being and Human Providers.
In only a few months, Kennedy has helped convey a pox upon the nation — and till Republicans get critical about holding him accountable, extra People will die, and the president’s legacy on well being and security will likely be badly tarnished.
Kennedy, who has no coaching in medication or well being, has lengthy been the nation’s foremost peddler of junk science and the crackpot conspiracy theories that movement from it. The best hazard in elevating him to HHS secretary was all the time that he would use his place to undermine public confidence in vaccines, which might result in useless struggling and even dying. And so it has come to move.
In 2000, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention declared that measles had been successfully eradicated within the U.S., due to vaccine charges that hovered round 95%, the extent wanted for herd immunity. Now, in no small half due to the doubt Kennedy has been sowing concerning the security of vaccines, the U.S. is within the midst of what’s shaping as much as be the worst measles outbreak because the early Nineties.
Measles resurgence
Earlier than this 12 months, nobody within the U.S. had died from measles in a decade. This 12 months, three folks have died, two of them youngsters. But Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, saying it was “not unusual.”
Within the aftermath of the deaths, he didn’t use his place to induce dad and mom to vaccinate their youngsters, or warn of the hazards of failing to take action, or declare vaccines secure, or allay misplaced considerations about them. As a substitute, he did what he has been doing for many years: He introduced the security and efficacy of vaccines as an open query for people to resolve. Not surprisingly, the outbreak continued — and has worsened.
Some 1,300 instances of measles have now been reported this 12 months, with youngsters accounting for two-thirds of them. Greater than 160 folks have been hospitalized — and survival doesn’t assure a full restoration. Measles can result in pneumonia and worse, together with mind swelling and everlasting incapacity.
Measles is hardly the one infectious illness that might make a comeback below Kennedy, and his assault on lifesaving vaccines has stretched nicely past his use of the bully pulpit. Along with firing scientists and reducing analysis throughout a wide range of companies, he just lately fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, which recommends the vaccines People ought to get. Of their place, he appointed a wide range of folks with out vital experience in immunology, together with these within the anti-vaccine motion — which guarantees to make the unfolding catastrophe even worse.
The chair of the Senate well being committee, Invoice Cassidy, voted to substantiate Kennedy no less than partly as a result of Kennedy dedicated himself — or so Cassidy thought — to sustaining the vaccination panel “without changes.” A lot for that.
Cassidy might need a proper to really feel burned if he hadn’t been so myopic. Through the affirmation listening to, he requested a query that summed up the scenario clearly. “Does a 70-year-old man,” Cassidy mentioned, “who has spent decades criticizing vaccines, and who’s financially vested in finding fault with vaccines — can he change his attitudes and approach now that he’ll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?”
The reply was all the time apparent.
Deceived themselves
Kennedy by no means gave any indication that he can be altering his stripes, however Cassidy and his colleagues deceived themselves into pondering in any other case — or, worse, they knew higher and easily buckled to political stress, inserting their very own political careers above the lives of their constituents. Just one Republican, Mitch McConnell, voted in opposition to affirmation. McConnell, who contracted polio as a baby earlier than the vaccine was found, understood what a harmful recreation his colleagues had been taking part in.
Senate Republicans have made this mess, and they should clear it up. They’ve a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of Kennedy, and so they have an ethical duty to do every part doable to constrain Kennedy’s lethal actions — or pressure him out. That ought to embrace demanding that the White Home stress Kennedy to start out selling religion in vaccines, together with by appointing extra certified folks to the vaccine panel — or hearth him.
In the event that they received’t do it to avoid wasting lives, they need to do it to avoid wasting their very own pores and skin. Democrats might hardly dream up a greater line of assault than the one Kennedy is giving them, by turning the GOP into the celebration of measles — the Grand Outdated Pestilence. That’s not going to play nicely with dad and mom.
Making America wholesome once more begins with bringing Kennedy to heel — or sending him packing. Till Senate Republicans summon the braveness to try this, extra People will get severely sick and die — and Republicans will undergo the backlash on the polls.
Michael R. Bloomberg is the previous mayor of New York Metropolis and the founder and majority proprietor of Bloomberg LP, father or mother firm of Bloomberg Information. ©2025 Bloomberg. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company.
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