Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s decide 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.
Here is what to find out about Kennedy’s positions on COVID-19, and why some specialists 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 keeping with a 2023 video shared by the New York Submit, when Kennedy was a presidential candidate, he mentioned at a non-public dinner in New York Metropolis, “There may be an argument that [COVID-19] is ethnically focused. COVID-19 assaults sure races disproportionately. COVID-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and Black individuals. 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 Submit story was “mistaken,” and that “I’ve by no means, ever urged that the COVID-19 virus was focused to spare Jews. I don’t consider 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 knowledge on hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 point out that at instances throughout the pandemic, the virus affected Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately. However that knowledge additionally confirmed that the rationale for the imbalance was not on account of any biologic components associated to race, however to a slew of social components. In the course of the pandemic, individuals in these demographic teams tended to have a better danger of publicity to the virus as a result of they have been extra more likely to work important jobs that might not be executed at house, a larger probability of residing in bigger households the place infections can unfold rapidly, extra restricted entry to well being care and vaccines, and better charges of underlying persistent situations corresponding to bronchial asthma, diabetes and coronary heart illness, which might make them extra susceptible to critical sickness from COVID-19.
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A lot of the disproportionate impression of COVID-19 “replicate inequities that come up on account of structural racism and never race,” says Samantha Artiga, vice chairman and director of the racial fairness and well being coverage program at KFF who has revealed an evaluation of COVID-19 tendencies 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 medication and demonizing the medical trade,” says Dr. Eric Burnett, assistant professor of drugs at Columbia College. “He simply desires to burn every thing 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 would…cross the Alps into Switzerland. You possibly can conceal 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 extensively 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 principally have a zero danger COVID.” That is not supported by knowledge from the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), which present that younger kids can and do develop infections.
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Kennedy has known as himself an advocate for “medical freedom” and “bodily autonomy,” supporting the concept individuals ought to be capable of selected for themselves whether or not they get vaccinated, primarily based on having knowledgeable knowledge.
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 supplies customized well being care. “A part of the issue is that these are appalling errors in communication and consequence from not being a scientist and never being prepare scientifically. You utilize phrases and phrases that sound correct, like evidence-based medication, however evidence-based medication is totally primarily based on the scientific technique which he evidently rejects.”
As head of HHS, Kennedy would even have appreciable energy to affect vaccine coverage in innumerable methods, together with by way of CDC committees that advocate vaccine coverage for every thing from childhood vaccinations to the yearly flu and COVID-19 pictures, and on the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration, which opinions and approves vaccines as secure 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 specialists, people who find themselves aware of pandemics and have labored on them earlier than: they simply aren’t going to be there. I believe it will likely be tougher for the American individuals to climate that storm.”
The priority is not purely hypothetical; as circumstances of fowl flu proceed to rise amongst cattle, public well being specialists are fastidiously monitoring the virus’ potential shift to spreading amongst individuals. “I intend to dedicate the suitable assets to stopping pandemics,” Kennedy mentioned throughout the listening to when questioned about fowl flu. “That is a central a part of my job.”
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But the Trump Administration has already taken steps to weaken the federal government’s capacity to reply to 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 advised to right away 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 ailments like fowl flu and retains physicians and public-health specialists knowledgeable about rising threats.
“You and I as non-public residents don’t have any technique to collect, collate, and synthesize knowledge from throughout the U.S., a lot much less from internationally,” says Poland. “We’re depending on the federal government to try this for us. However what occurs when that authorities gained’t, or can’t, or manipulates that sort of info? That’s a world of damage.”
