RFK is causing irreparable damage to our public health system

Education Secretary Linda McMahon recently referred to artificial intelligence as “A-One,” as if talking about the steak sauce.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins proposed that Americans combat high egg prices by raising chickens in their backyards.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, is said to have shared classified military action plans on unsecured internet platforms.

Incompetence in the Trump Administration is all a big joke — until someone gets hurt. Enter Robert Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He is hurting people.

For starters, there is an outbreak of measles in Texas — 600 cases and counting. In one horrific display, a doctor praised by Kennedy was treating unvaccinated patients, including infected children, while he had an active case of measles, visible sores on his face and all. This grotesque display was filmed, disseminated, and celebrated by an anti-vaccine group (which Kennedy once led), because the doctor opposes vaccinations against measles.

Kennedy Jr.’s cousin, Caroline Kennedy, a former ambassador, warned senators ahead of their confirmation vote that his views on vaccines were “dangerous and willfully misinformed.” She also called him a "predator" and a hypocrite for vaccinating his own children while urging other parents not to.

The secretary’s incompetent handling of the measles outbreak is just part of a not-so-funny story. It is hard to laugh when Kennedy announces with scant evidence that autism is a “preventable disease.” He is suggesting that childhood vaccines are linked to the rise in autism and promising to identify the true cause of autism by September. 

Most shockingly, he demeans people with autism as Americans who will “never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

That slander got no laughs from families with autistic members. They know the range of abilities of their loved ones. The backlash was immediate and extended to a public rebuke.

“To my ears, the grimmest part of what he said  is not about the ability to play baseball; it is that he started this litany with paying taxes ... [as if] those who are not able to be gainfully employed are somehow lesser citizens,” wrote Jessica Grose in a New York Times opinion column.

Kennedy’s characterization of autistic Americans, Grose wrote, reminded a medical historian of the eugenics movement, an effort to engineer human life to eliminate disabled people as “tax burdens" who "shouldn’t exist.”

Newsweek similarly quoted a social media user saying Kennedy’s creation of a registry for autistic people “echoes eugenics.” Richard Angwin wrote on X that the registry is “not about health; it’s about control. Stop this now."

The HHS secretary is to be saluted for pointing out that Autism diagnoses have surged over the last few decades. The increase is chilling. In the last 25 years, the diagnosis of autism in the U.S. has gone from one in 150 children to one in every 36 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is a clear need for science-based inquiry to review several factors — genetics, environmental factors, misdiagnosis, and yes, chemical pollution. 

But Kennedy isn’t waiting on the results of scientific studies. Even as the nation’s top health officer, he is diving into conspiracy theories, beginning with an attack on vaccines. Recall that during his Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy had no answer to reports that he made money on referral fees paid to him by law firms for recruiting plaintiffs for lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

In a December column, during Kennedy’s confirmation hearings, I supported his fight against big money food and pharmaceutical companies that fail to protect public health. But I cautioned that “his vaccine misinformation far outweighs any good he might achieve ... Every senator who votes to confirm Kennedy is complicit in the harm he will cause to public health and the lives of America’s children.”

Since then, Kennedy has made good on that grim prediction. He has cut more than 10,000 employees from HHS and slashed billions of dollars in funding for medical research, mental health services, disease prevention, and vaccination programs. He falsely told an interviewer that the cuts were “mostly DEI” initiatives. They weren’t.

Meanwhile, he shrugs off the consequences with delusional defiance.

“The deep state is real,” he declared last month, arguing that the FDA has been “captured” by the very industries it is supposed to regulate.

A recent YouGov poll found more Americans disapprove (43 percent) than approve (36 percent) of Kennedy’s job performance.

The tragedy in this story is that Kennedy’s core concern is valid. Corporations loaded with political donations often avoid sufficient regulation by federal agencies. Also, skepticism is warranted when research is funded or manipulated by industry.

But Kennedy takes that truth and twists it into something grotesque. Time and again, he exploits legitimate concerns to advance conspiracy theories, undermine science, and scare parents away from life-saving vaccines.

When Kennedy leaves office, the damage will linger. Future efforts to reform public health policy will struggle for public support thanks to Kennedy’s recklessness. He has given the cause of public health reform a bad name. 

That’s no joke — it is a crying shame.

Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”