No, you’re not dreaming. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has turned the nation’s medical system into a nightmare.
I was literally mouth-open, slack-jawed last week when I watched and listened to Kennedy babble incoherently before a Senate committee, trying futilely, to justify, or even explain, what he’s done as U.S. health secretary in the few months since he was dropped there like a shovel full of squirrel entrails.
Even on matters not involving science, math, reality or health care, he burbled and prattled like a bumpkin lawyer trying to justify why his client had driven a tractor over the neighbor’s chickens.
Just seconds after he warbled his way into an unceremonious and awkward tap dance around his demonstrable lack of knowledge about anything linked to science or medicine, I was hearkened back to the spring of 2021. About a year after the pandemic really became a pandemic, my family and I drove all the way to Fountain, Colorado for three of the first Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine shots available in the state. We were herded like muzzled cattle through stations and then into a large waiting space for 15 minutes after the injection, in case we needed to faint or puke.
Nobody did.
Every day for months after the disease was first identified became a whirlwind of technical details and new research helping all of us understand the pandemic, the virus that caused it and the medical miracles developed to prevent and treat it.
The massive and worldwide concerted effort to manage and prevent the pandemic was one of the rare triumphs of government and global mobilization in our lifetimes.
Yet at the very moment Americans should be building on that legacy, Kennedy is dismantling it.
From the witness table at a Senate hearing last week, Kennedy peddled the same falsehoods and distortions he has trafficked in for years, this time not just as another wack anti-vaxxer quack, but posing as a federal authority.
The result is a public health catastrophe in the making.
Kennedy told lawmakers that “nobody knows” how many lives COVID-19 vaccines saved.
That is not a misunderstanding. It is a lie.
The record is clear and has been. Drawing on one of many, many studies, The Lancet estimated that nearly 20 million lives were saved by vaccines worldwide in 2021 alone. The World Health Organization made the research-backed case for a 57% reduction in deaths in Europe, totaling 1.4 million spared. In the United States, almost 2 million people are alive today because of COVID vaccines.
That’s not guesswork. It’s math and science that have not only been supported by evidence, but the system used to calculate that number has been repeated by others who came up with the same results.
That’s how science works. To be credible, a theory, or hypothesis, must be supported by documented and demonstrable evidence. And, others must be able to obtain the same results by following the same path and techniques, or even different ones.
Kennedy lied last week about real science data, and so much more.
He also falsely claimed “anybody can get the (COVID) booster.”
His own department, however, has limited access to seniors and high-risk groups, removing one of the few options for children. Pharmacies across the country will be turning parents away, not because of science, but because Kennedy’s policies preclude those who want to protect their kids but are being denied by the very agency sworn to protect public health.
And when pressed on the grim toll of the pandemic, Kennedy shrugged and said, “I don’t think anybody knows.”
Not just anybody, but everybody knows that 1.2 million Americans are dead from COVID, so far. Those deaths have been counted by both the CDC and the World Health Organization, based on numerous vetted studies.
To dismiss that figure is not just cruel to grieving families, it is dangerous. Kennedy is telling Americans that facts are negotiable, that numbers and reality can be waved away, that the pandemic’s devastation was just “data chaos.”
That is Kennedy’s playbook. He has falsely claimed children endure 92 vaccine doses before adulthood. He has insinuated, without evidence, that antidepressants fuel school shootings. He has leaned on junk science documents that conflate the harms of COVID infection with vaccines that prevent those very harms.
His most reckless act yet is canceling mRNA vaccine research, the very technology that gave us our most powerful weapon against COVID-19.
This is sabotage.
The mRNA vaccines are not only safe and effective, they are also adaptable, fast to create, and they are the best hope for combating future pandemics. That’s the opinion of not just every credible body of science and medicine in the United States, but in the world. They are being tested against HIV, cancer, and genetic diseases.
Every restriction to access he creates is another infection, another hospital bed filled, another funeral.
Vaccination is not just about individual liberty. It is about collective defense. For those Americans who choose to live in a community, we must all live as members of the community. It means we can’t drive drunk. We can’t fire guns into the air for fun. We can’t have poisonous snakes in the yard as pets. And we must protect each other from disease by using safe and practical means, such as proven vaccines.
When community coverage rates drop, herd immunity collapses. The virus races through communities. The people who suffer most are the ones least able to fight back.
If you don’t like being compelled to vaccinate, stay out of public places. It’s that easy.
Democrats and Republicans alike, including Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, were unified against Kennedy’s nonsense.
“Vaccines work,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican doctor from Wyoming. Cassidy, also a physician, credited Trump’s previous “Warp Speed” vaccine effort with saving millions of lives.
Kennedy’s response was the same as always. He sneers at his critics, accusing them of fabrication, evading accountability.
This is not some gullible fringe speaking circuit or TikTok reels. He’s lying to confront the world body of real science.
Kennedy’s crusade echoes years of anti-vaccine activism that has already harmed American communities. Measles outbreaks in under-vaccinated towns threaten even in places like Colorado. Parents are confused into skipping shots or simply don’t have the stamina to navigate and fight back against Kennedy’s interference.
The irrefutable truth is this: Vaccines save lives. Millions of them. And without them, millions will die.
Kennedy’s war on vaccines is reckless, baseless, and lethal. Americans cannot afford his crusade, and we shouldn’t have to persuade Trump to take up the nation’s defense against his own dubious cabinet picks. We deserve better.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Boy, Dave, you are dead right on this opinion. It is correct that being a part of a community means that rules are imposed upon members to make the community safer. You cited several examples, which we’ve accepted. All vaccines should be a part of the rules. It’s not just the raw scientific data, it’s the statistical rigor applied to the raw data. A high confidence interval of 95 to 99% is used for medical research. When the scientists tell us that a vaccine is 94% effective, like some of the COVID-19 vaccines, they are confident that taking the vaccine has a very strong chance of protecting you from the worst effects of the disease. I would take that chance a million times out of a million given that 1.2MM died from the disease. The NIH and CDC estimated that some 3.58MM were hospitalized with COVID in 2020 and 2021. Again, that number only increases my confidence in the efficacy of the vaccine. The most important point, is this is a numbers game – it’s all about assessing the chances of avoiding the worst outcome. Mr. Kennedy intentionally either remains ignorant or refuses to share data that is widely known. A person running the Department of Health and Human Services should not be willfully ignorant or afraid to share data about the results of a pandemic!
I have always believed that science and the scientific method are our best methods for determining cause and effect, as well as truth in our world. Recently, however, politics and political ideologies have invaded “science” as well as every other aspect of our world. This was most prominently exemplified by Dr. Fauci, who claimed that he himself was science and who’s many claims, in the name of science, have been since shown to be false. It is a sad day when one cannot even trust the CDC anymore. Until our world becomes less politically polarized, one must take conclusions in the name of science with caution and suspicion.
Oh grow up and face reality.
Dr. Fauci is a widely recognized expert. He has spoken to countless experts when needed, he has an excellent record as an expert himself.
I note that you have claimed that Fauci made claims that were false. Yet you identify none of them. Meanwhile, his opponents in the handling of Covid have offered nothing but quackery.
Fauci is a recognized expert based on decades of research and public service.
Who the hell are you?
Dr. Fauci may have been a widely recognized expert as a research scientist, but he is also human, and subject to the same flaws and biases as the rest of us. I think he became so inebriated with power that he began to state what were his educated opinions, as scientific fact. He admitted as much when under question by Congress. The effectiveness of “social distancing” was just one such example. This led to the shut-down of our entire economy and the long-term closure of schools, which our children still haven’t recovered from.
On top of this, the Biden-Harris administration violated one of the core principles of science, that of peer review, by silencing all other opposing opinions in the media about how to best manage the pandemic.
Well, many simply believe anyone with a white coat. Were you one of the ones who believed that the border was closed and under control, that Biden was “sharp as a tack,” or that the growing inflation was just our imagination?
This has nothing to do with Biden. Of course, that means your usual barbed snark must work overtime to pass yourself off as a voice of reason (too late for that, btw).
I think you have little to no understanding of “peer review”, something Dr. Fauci could write a manual on. Fauci did, in fact, engage in peer review during the pandemic, whereas I think you got your ideas from a box of Crackerjacks. How did the “Biden-Harris administration” “silence” opposing opinions? Are there scientists languishing away in federal prison somewhere? Pretty sure we’d have heard about that, if only from Republican hyenas with nothing else to do.
We then come to your real complaint: the “Biden-Harris” administration. Never before has there been a pandemic handled this globally, with as much input from world experts. I am unaware of Biden or any of his people barring Dr. Fauci or anyone else from consulting with other experts. It would be news to Dr. Fauci as well.
Dr. Fauci has had a long and storied career. You, on the other hand, seem to be a legend in your own mind.