Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s decide to go 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 learn 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 line with a 2023 video shared by the New York Publish, when Kennedy was a presidential candidate, he stated at a personal 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 Publish story was “mistaken,” and that “I’ve by no means, ever advised 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 stated 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 instances through the pandemic, the virus affected Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately. However that information additionally confirmed that the rationale for the imbalance was not as a result of any biologic elements associated to race, however to a slew of social elements. Throughout the pandemic, individuals in these demographic teams tended to have the next threat of publicity to the virus as a result of they had been extra prone to work important jobs that would not be carried out at house, a better chance of dwelling 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 may make them extra weak to severe sickness from COVID-19.
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A lot of the disproportionate affect of COVID-19 “replicate inequities that come up as a result 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 printed an evaluation of COVID-19 traits 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 business,” says Dr. Eric Burnett, assistant professor of medication at Columbia College. “He simply desires to burn every little thing down after which not present actual options for the way to repair the issues he talks about.”
RFK Jr.’s opposition to COVID-19 vaccines
Kennedy, who’s recognized 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 can cover in an attic, like Anne Frank did,” he stated at a rally protesting vaccine mandates in Washington, DC in 2022. (After his remarks had been broadly condemned, Kennedy apologized.)
His opposition to the vaccine additionally got here up within the listening to when he stated that “COVID vaccines are inappropriate for six 12 months outdated kids who principally have a zero threat 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.
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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 to 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 concept 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 outcome from not being a scientist and never being prepare scientifically. You employ phrases and phrases that sound correct, like evidence-based medication, however evidence-based medication 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 by way of CDC committees that suggest vaccine coverage for every little thing from childhood vaccinations to the yearly flu and COVID-19 photographs, 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 underneath 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 conversant in pandemics and have labored on them earlier than: they only aren’t going to be there. I feel it is going to be tougher for the American individuals to climate that storm.”
The priority is not purely hypothetical; as instances of chicken flu proceed to rise amongst cattle, public well being consultants are fastidiously monitoring the virus’ potential shift to spreading amongst individuals. “I intend to dedicate the suitable sources to stopping pandemics,” Kennedy stated through the listening to when questioned about chicken 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 potential to reply to a pandemic. Simply days after taking workplace, Trump signed an government order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Well being Group (WHO); days later, public well being officers had been instructed 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 newest outbreaks of illnesses like chicken flu and retains physicians and public-health consultants knowledgeable about rising threats.
“You and I as non-public residents haven’t any technique 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 try this for us. However what occurs when that authorities received’t, or can’t, or manipulates that form of info? That’s a world of harm.”
