Questions for RFK Jr.’s Senate Confirmation: Part II

RFK Jr. will soon be asked questions about heading the Department of Health and Human Services. Here are some suggestions.

Mr. Kennedy, you have been nominated to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest department in the United States government. HHS has an annual budget of $1.85 trillion and supervises 80,000 employees. I have some concerns about your appointment:

Question #1: You continue to publicly question whether vaccines cause autism. This theory was popularized by a discredited UK doctor named Andrew Wakefield in 1998. But Wakefield's study was later retracted by The Lancet medical journal. Multiple studies across many countries, have since found no link between vaccines and autism. In addition, a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that children with autism spectrum disorder and their healthy younger siblings were less likely to be vaccinated. The authors concluded that these children were “at increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Do you think it’s responsible to continue to sound the alarm that vaccines cause autism when studies consistently show that they don’t? And that by sounding that alarm, you are putting children at unnecessary risk.

Question #2: In your book, The Real Anthony Fauci, you state that vaccinating children with COVID vaccines is “unethical.” However, 1) more than 1,600 children less than 19 years of age have died from COVID, 2) studies have shown that the vaccine is safe in that age group, and 3) about 6 percent of emergency department visits among children less than 5 years of age are currently due to COVID.

Why do you think it is “unethical” to vaccinate young children? Wouldn’t it be prudent to vaccinate young children given the current burden of disease in children and the safety of the vaccine?

Question #3: In your book, The Real Anthony Fauci, you state that both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin work to treat COVID. However, excellent, large, placebo-controlled studies have shown that neither hydroxychloroquine nor ivermectin given early in COVID illness prevented hospitalization. Rather than believe these studies, you have written that the government, pharmaceutical companies, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, and medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine have all conspired to hide the truth about these drugs. I worry that when studies don’t fit your biases, your default position is to believe in massive, wide-ranging conspiracies.

As director of HHS, will you be open to data showing that you are wrong? And, if so, please provide some evidence that this has been true in the past.

Question #4: In your book, The Real Anthony Fauci, you state that the hepatitis B vaccine “did not reduce hepatitis B.” In the United States, the hepatitis B vaccine was routinely recommended for all newborns in 1991. At the time, about 18,000 children less than 10 years of age were infected with hepatitis B, half of whom contracted the virus from their mothers. As you know, those who contract hepatitis B at birth have a high likelihood of developing chronic liver disease (cirrhosis) and liver cancer. Since the introduction of the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns in the United States, the disease has been virtually eliminated in children.

Do you still think that the hepatitis B vaccine doesn’t work? And, if so, will you recommend overturning the current CDC recommendation to vaccinate newborns with hepatitis B vaccine?