Robert Kennedy Jr. is trying to convince Americans that vaccines will hurt them. No matter what superficial throwaway statements he offers the public to the contrary, that’s the obvious goal.
In the newest front in his cause, the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary has canceled $500 million in mRNA research, an effort President Donald Trump once called a “modern-day miracle.” The HHS head, who in 2023 said no vaccine was “safe and effective,” says he still supports “safe, effective vaccines.”
It should be noted that the notion of RFK Jr., a progressive until five minutes ago, acting as a steward of tax dollars, is ludicrous. If RFK’s mission was to control spending, there are plenty of places to look within his agency, including scores of beloved Nanny State programs administered by the HHS. The primary charge of the CDC, for instance, is to prevent communicable diseases, not to lecture us about cereal or corn syrup — one of the few worthwhile public-private ventures to help stave off debilitating national pandemics.
Twenty-two research projects focused not only on COVID-19 vaccines but also on influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and other communicable ailments, which are being canceled. It should be noted that new research often leads scientists to unexpected results and uses, as well. However, Kennedy contends that “mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses.”
How does he know? Maybe the technology that uses fragments of the genetic code to manipulate the body to defend itself against infection and disease won’t produce any significant breakthroughs. But RFK Jr wants Americans to believe that RNA, a molecule in every living cell, isn’t just ineffective but dangerous.
The real purpose of the cancellation is to preemptively undermine the credibility of research, which almost surely goes on in the private sector that sees value in it. In the past, RFK argued for the need for greater research to understand vaccines before recommending them, yet in this case, he demands less research. The pattern is clear.
Example: After visiting Texas children who were needlessly struggling with measles earlier in the year, Kennedy also visited “two extraordinary healers” named Dr. Richard Bartlett and Dr. Ben Edwards, who “have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin.” The purpose of the juxtaposition is to create the impression that alternative medicine is enough.
If you want to use that therapy, go for it, I guess. As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence that inhaled steroids such as budesonide or oral antibiotics like clarithromycin are effective in treating measles; many doctors think it’s junk science. Bartlett was disciplined by the Texas Medical Board in 2003 for “unusual use of risk-filled medications” of this variety.
But RFK Jr., you’ll notice, didn’t bother to wait for the research to praise those doctors or their methods. A quack who once claimed that the Polio vaccine causes cancer that killed “many, many, many, many, many more people” than Polio itself and lied about the connection between autism and vaccines long after the hoax had been exposed — grossly comparing it to a “holocaust”— doesn’t give one whit about any inquiry that proves or disproves the efficacy of vaccines, live attenuated or inactivated or mRNA. He’s reflexively against it.
Not long ago, RFK Jr. fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced it with his people to create the impression that he had more fairly represented the scientific debate over vaccines. “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” was Kennedy’s reasoning. The former committee members, he argued, had too many “conflicts of interest,” a euphemism for working or advising “Big Pharma.” Imagine creating an advisory board for an industry without including people who understand how it works.
HHS CANCELS DEVELOPMENT OF MRNA VACCINES FOR FLU AND COVID
Granted, I’m a layman. But I don’t believe COVID mRNA vaccines are detrimental (as a lot of people seem to think), nor does it seem that they are miraculous, as proponents like Trump claim. My problem with the COVID-19 regime was the compulsion, not the efforts to mitigate a pandemic, nor the development of new technology that might head off future ones. Pharma companies can’t compel you to inject anything. Only the state can do that. And the Luddite demonization of pharma, which saves and improves the millions of lives, is still one of the big mysteries of the modern age.
Now, the same people who claim that public health institutions can’t be trusted believe everything the new head of HHS tells them. It’s a shame that so many groups like the American Medical Association, all in on the authoritarian COVID regime, have burned the public’s trust and goodwill. However, it needs to be stressed whenever possible, RFK Jr. is no better than the hacks who undermined our trust in science under former President Joe Biden. In some ways, he is worse.