RFK Jr., Whose Misinformation Helped Cause a Measles Outbreak That Killed 83 People, Says Trump Has Promised Him “Control” of “Public Health Agencies”

HHS is the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of protecting the health of all Americans. Among other things, it includes the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid; oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and works to prevent disease outbreaks and ensure food and drug safety. So the idea of letting Kennedy “control” such a department is actually insane, and if you’re wondering why, a quick reminder that Kennedy:

Is a huge anti-vaxxer

Penned an article titled “Deadly Immunity,” published in Rolling Stone and Salon in 2005, in which he alleged that the government had covered up a link between vaccines and autism. (Both outlets later retracted the piece, and the Salon editor who worked on it said that after it went up, “we were besieged by scientists and advocates showing how Kennedy had misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and perhaps even falsified data…. It was the worst mistake of my career. I probably should have been fired.”)

Wrote a foreword for a book that claimed COVID-19 vaccines caused sudden deaths among healthy young people; the book featured on its cover a 12-year-old who’d never received the COVID-19 vaccine and had died as a result of a malformed blood vessel in his brain

Has been accused of stoking fears about vaccines in the run-up to a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people

Once implied that Anne Frank, she of Holocaust fame, had it easy compared to what anti-vaxxers go through

Has more than once suggested that chemicals in the environment can make children gay and trans

Declared, “I am not a church boy,” following a sexual assault allegation

Admitted to staging an elaborate bear-murder scene in Central Park because he didn’t have time to eat said bear’s flesh

Sawed a dead whale’s head off, according to one of his daughters, and strapped it to the roof of the family’s car, causing his children to have to wear plastic bags on their heads to avoid the “whale juice” that was “pour[ing] into the windows”

Said in a 2012 divorce deposition that a worm “got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”