Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s choose to move the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS), was grilled by Democratic senators throughout his affirmation listening to on Jan. 29, who confronted him with conspiratorial and conflicting statements he has made about COVID-19.
This is what to find out about Kennedy’s positions on COVID-19, and why some consultants and lawmakers are involved about him main the U.S.’s response to a subsequent potential pandemic.
Kennedy’s racial and ethnic claims about COVID-19
Kennedy has held some controversial and unsubstantiated views on COVID-19 and ethnicity.
In response to a 2023 video shared by the New York Publish, when Kennedy was a presidential candidate, he mentioned at a non-public dinner in New York Metropolis, “There’s an argument that [COVID-19] is ethnically focused. COVID-19 assaults sure races disproportionately. COVID-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and Black folks. The people who find themselves most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language.” After being accused of being anti-Semitic, Kennedy wrote on X that the Publish story was “mistaken,” and that “I’ve by no means, ever steered that the COVID-19 virus was focused to spare Jews. I don’t imagine and by no means implied that the ethnic impact was intentionally engineered.”
Senators introduced up the assertion on the listening to. “I did not say it was intentionally focused,” Kennedy mentioned once more.
What science says about COVID-19 and race
Authorities well being information on hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 point out that at occasions through the pandemic, the virus affected Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately. However that information additionally confirmed that the explanation for the imbalance was not resulting from any biologic elements associated to race, however to a slew of social elements. Through the pandemic, folks in these demographic teams tended to have the next danger of publicity to the virus as a result of they have been extra more likely to work important jobs that would not be finished at house, a larger chance of residing in bigger households the place infections can unfold shortly, extra restricted entry to well being care and vaccines, and better charges of underlying persistent circumstances comparable to bronchial asthma, diabetes and coronary heart illness, which may make them extra weak to critical sickness from COVID-19.
Learn Extra: What to Know About Spasmodic Dysphonia, the Situation That Impacts RFK Jr.’s Voice
A lot of the disproportionate affect of COVID-19 “replicate inequities that come up resulting from structural racism and never race,” says Samantha Artiga, vp and director of the racial fairness and well being coverage program at KFF who has printed an evaluation of COVID-19 developments by race and ethnicity. “The concept of organic variations by race has been disproven,” she says. “Traditionally, it’s been used for an array of abuses and mistreatment of individuals of shade.”
Kennedy’s 2023 feedback about COVID-19 “capitalize on confusion and distrust within the public to push his personal agenda of pure drugs and demonizing the medical business,” says Dr. Eric Burnett, assistant professor of drugs at Columbia College. “He simply needs to burn the whole lot down after which not present actual options for tips on how to repair the issues he talks about.”
RFK Jr.’s opposition to COVID-19 vaccines
Kennedy, who’s identified for his anti-vaccine views, has been a vocal critic of the federal government’s response to COVID-19, together with the lockdowns and vaccine and masks mandates, which he as soon as in contrast to Nazi practices in focus camps. “Even in Hitler Germany, you possibly can…cross the Alps into Switzerland. You may disguise in an attic, like Anne Frank did,” he mentioned at a rally protesting vaccine mandates in Washington, DC in 2022. (After his remarks have been broadly condemned, Kennedy apologized.)
His opposition to the vaccine additionally got here up within the listening to when he mentioned that “COVID vaccines are inappropriate for six yr outdated kids who mainly have a zero danger COVID.” That is not supported by information from the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), which present that younger kids can and do develop infections.
Learn Extra: RFK Jr. Says He’ll Observe Trump’s Lead on Abortion
Kennedy has referred to as himself an advocate for “medical freedom” and “bodily autonomy,” supporting the concept that folks ought to be capable of selected for themselves whether or not they get vaccinated, primarily based on having knowledgeable information.
However the proof he espouses is “his proof, proof that helps no matter his present principle is,” says Dr. Gregory Poland, president of Atria Analysis Institute, which gives customized well being care. “A part of the issue is that these are appalling errors in communication and outcome from not being a scientist and never being practice scientifically. You utilize phrases and phrases that sound correct, like evidence-based drugs, however evidence-based drugs is totally primarily based on the scientific methodology which he evidently rejects.”
As head of HHS, Kennedy would even have appreciable energy to affect vaccine coverage in innumerable methods, together with via CDC committees that suggest vaccine coverage for the whole lot from childhood vaccinations to the yearly flu and COVID-19 photographs, and on the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration, which critiques and approves vaccines as protected and efficacious.
Concern over how Kennedy would lead throughout one other pandemic
Senators pressed Kennedy on his previous statements about COVID-19 as a window into how an HHS beneath his management would reply to a brand new pandemic—a thought that troubles Burnett. “The guardrails are gone” in President Trump’s second time period, he says. “Medical consultants, people who find themselves aware of pandemics and have labored on them earlier than: they simply aren’t going to be there. I feel it is going to be harder for the American folks to climate that storm.”
The priority is not purely hypothetical; as instances of hen flu proceed to rise amongst livestock, public well being consultants are rigorously monitoring the virus’ potential shift to spreading amongst folks. “I intend to dedicate the suitable assets to stopping pandemics,” Kennedy mentioned through the listening to when questioned about hen flu. “That is a central a part of my job.”
Learn Extra: RFK Jr. Denied He Is Anti-Vaccine Throughout His Affirmation Listening to. Right here’s His Report
But the Trump Administration has already taken steps to weaken the federal government’s capability to answer a pandemic. Simply days after taking workplace, Trump signed an govt order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Well being Group (WHO); days later, public well being officers have been informed to instantly stop working with the WHO. The Administration additionally froze federal well being communications till additional discover—together with stopping publication of the CDC’s weekly MMWR report, which particulars the most recent outbreaks of illnesses like hen flu and retains physicians and public-health consultants knowledgeable about rising threats.
“You and I as non-public residents haven’t any approach to collect, collate, and synthesize information from throughout the U.S., a lot much less from internationally,” says Poland. “We’re depending on the federal government to do this for us. However what occurs when that authorities gained’t, or can’t, or manipulates that form of data? That’s a world of harm.”
