{"id":485332,"date":"2026-02-17T08:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485332\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T08:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:10:15","slug":"the-disastrous-first-year-of-rfk-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485332\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disastrous First Year of RFK Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends a cabinet meeting at the White House on February 26, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. MARKED THE EVE of his first anniversary as secretary of health and human services as only he could: By telling<\/a> podcaster Theo Von that he attended in-person recovery meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic (instead of isolating at home) to survive addiction: \u201cI\u2019m not scared of a germ. You know, I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaughnessy Naughton, head of 314 Action, which works to elect doctors and scientists to office, raised a good point in response: \u201cBut . . . RFK Jr. doesn\u2019t believe in germ theory?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not really, no: Kennedy, in a bestselling 2021 book<\/a>, explicitly rejected germ theory, one of the foundations of modern medical science, in favor of \u201cmiasma theory,\u201d which pediatrician and vaccine inventor Paul Offit describes<\/a> as \u201ca long-abandoned medical theory that holds that diseases are caused by poisonous vapors.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is beyond comprehension that the Senate confirmed this man to oversee America\u2019s health. The risks are so immediate and constant that it can be difficult to keep track of them all.<\/p>\n

Take last week. On Tuesday, we found out one part of Kennedy\u2019s department is researching<\/a> horse dewormer (Ivermectin) as a cancer cure while another is refusing<\/a> to consider a new Moderna flu vaccine.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, four states led by Democrats\u2014California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota\u2014filed suit to block $600 million in cuts<\/a> to public health funding from Kennedy\u2019s department, arguing that the \u201cdevastating\u201d plan is \u201cbased on arbitrary political animus\u201d and violates both the law and the Constitution in multiple ways.<\/p>\n

On Thursday\u2014the same day the Trump administration ended<\/a> the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution, a threat<\/a> to both human and planetary health and welfare\u2014Kennedy announced from his highly visible perch that the nation\u2019s top public health official had disregarded public health guidance during a worldwide pandemic.<\/p>\n

On Friday, a judge in Boston heard arguments<\/a> in a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other health groups, trying to restore childhood vaccine recommendations weakened by Kennedy\u2019s handpicked vaccine advisory group.<\/p>\n

And that was just one week. It\u2019s hard to disagree with the verdict from Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy group, after the interview with Theo Von: Kennedy \u201ccontinues to lay bare why he is the most dangerous, in over his head, ill-suited person ever to lead such an important federal agency that has life-and-death power.\u201d Brad Woodhouse, the group\u2019s CEO, offered this succinct comment: \u201cResign.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALL THIS COMES AGAINST THE BACKDROP of a growing measles outbreak<\/a> in South Carolina, the United States on path to lose its measles eradication status<\/a> in April<\/a>, and the new childhood vaccine recommendations that amount to \u201cchoose your own adventure<\/a>,\u201d in the words of vaccine expert Jason L. Schwartz, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Yale color-codes the new vaccine schedule on what appears to be a scale of perfectly clear to utterly opaque: (1) recommended for all kids, (2) recommended for high-risk kids, (3) recommended for high-risk kids and for other kids after \u201cshared clinical decision-making,\u201d and (4) recommended only after \u201cshared clinical decision-making.\u201d In other words, parents, it depends on the meaning of \u201crisk\u201d and \u201cclinical decision-making.\u201d You figure it out. Oh, and all vaccines are available at no cost. Unless you must see your doctor to make a \u201cshared\u201d decision. If you even have a doctor. Or insurance.<\/p>\n

Confusion, and fewer vaccinated children, are inevitable. Which means more disease and death are inevitable.<\/p>\n

If only someone could have prevented this.<\/p>\n

There are, in fact, two senators who could have stopped Kennedy, and whose political and personal histories make them particularly well suited to stand up to him. I\u2019m thinking of Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former Republican Senate leader who shaped<\/a> today\u2019s disastrous Supreme Court and allowed Donald Trump\u2019s resurgence, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a gastroenterologist who once organized a public-private drive to vaccinate 36,000 children<\/a> against hepatitis B at no cost to schools or parents\u2014but later swallowed Kennedy\u2019s lies and made possible his catastrophic tenure atop America\u2019s public health system.<\/p>\n

McConnell, 83, is the only Republican<\/a> who voted against Kennedy\u2019s confirmation. A childhood polio survivor<\/a> from before there was a polio vaccine, in the past few years he has had occasional falls and other problems<\/a> associated with post-polio syndrome. He recently spent<\/a> a week in the hospital for flu-like symptoms, and is not running for re-election this year.<\/p>\n

Cassidy is 68 and he is running<\/a>, but he shouldn\u2019t be. Since voting to convict Trump of \u201cincitement of insurrection\u201d in his 2021 Senate impeachment trial, and earning an instant censure<\/a> from the Louisiana GOP, Cassidy has done his cringeworthy best to simulate diehard devotion to Trump.<\/p>\n

He cast the deciding vote<\/a> on the Finance Committee last year to send Kennedy\u2019s nomination to the Senate floor, and voted yes on his confirmation. In August, he praised<\/a> Trump for his leadership fighting fentanyl (he had signed a Cassidy bill<\/a> into law). In October, Cassidy posted<\/a> on Instagram: \u201cIn the Oval Office with President Trump today. He signed this terrific \u2018Gulf of America\u2019 hat for me. Made in the USA, of course. Nobody supports American manufacturing like our President.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the kissing up isn\u2019t working. At Trump\u2019s urging<\/a>, and with his advance endorsement, Rep. Julia Letlow jumped in to challenge Cassidy last month. \u201cYou can\u2019t represent Louisiana if you voted to impeach President Trump. We deserve a Senator who can work with the President and deliver results,\u201d she wrote<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

The Baton Rouge Advocate put a photo of Letlow with Trump on its front page last week, under a headline about her endorsement<\/a> from Kennedy\u2019s Make America Healthy Again movement\u2014a Trump-backed effort that encourages healthy eating and exercise but that also believes there is a chronic disease \u201cepidemic\u201d and promotes conspiracy theories about vaccines, wi-fi, and autism.<\/p>\n

MAHA AND MIASMAS ARE NO SUBSTITUTE for modern science. They\u2019re just a distraction from the wrecking crew Trump and Senate Republicans have installed to oversee the nation\u2019s public health system. It\u2019s a way for Letlow and others to seem concerned about health, when in fact the news each day suggests things are going to hell.<\/p>\n

Cassidy and McConnell could do a literal world of good if they spent the rest of 2026 speaking out against Kennedy and joining his Democratic critics in calling for him to be removed from his job. They could help gin up so much negative attention that Kennedy becomes an unsustainable drag on Trump and is fired or relocated.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no indication this is a priority for the two senators. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) introduced a well-grounded 28-charge impeachment resolution<\/a> against Kennedy in December, but so far it has attracted only one cosponsor. McConnell remains engaged on other matters he cares about\u2014he published<\/a> a Politico op-ed Thursday about various geopolitical challenges\u2014so his failure to speak out strongly against Kennedy is striking.<\/p>\n

And Cassidy, for his part, is still trying to prove he\u2019s got what it takes to be a MAGA success, including a working relationship with Trump. \u201cPresident Trump SIGNED my bill that ensures drug discounts work to DECREASE Americans\u2019 health care costs, NOT increase profit for shareholders. Big win for patients!!\u201d he tweeted<\/a> last Wednesday. Maybe. Whatever. Fine. But does that really compensate for the lies Kennedy told him to get confirmed, and the damage the secretary is doing to scientific research, public health institutions, and the nation\u2019s well-being?<\/p>\n

Dignity and professionalism are hard to find these days. Redemption is even less fashionable. You have to be capable of guilt or shame to even think about that sort of thing, and the Republican message from top to bottom, from the president down to the MAGA rank-and-file\u2014whether it\u2019s the Epstein files or killing two people in Minneapolis or watching measles make a comeback\u2014amounts to no apologies, no regrets, just power on through to the next great abomination\/victory.<\/p>\n

Only wimps worry about how history will judge them. The only time that matters is now, and the only judge that matters is Donald Trump. Even for McConnell and Cassidy. Even if their legacies, and the first sentences of their eventual obituaries, may hang in the balance.<\/p>\n

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