The Truth about RFK Jr

At SBM Steven Novella wrote, "In a 2013 study, for example, the average US consumer paid $0.14-$0.35/kWh in increased health care costs for the electricity they consume due to the effects of pollution. The same study estimates that the total societal health-related costs of burning fossil fuel is $361.7-886.5 billion annually. This amounts to $2,500 per year in additional healthcare costs per family on average. A 2021 study found that if we include the effects of climate change on health, the total costs are over $800 billion and may exceed a trillion dollars per year. These numbers are slightly old and are likely worse today.

"We have decades of data showing a consistent picture – air pollution from fossil fuel has a significant negative impact on health and a massive cost, to the individual and society. It is also another way to reveal the absolute sham that is RFK’s so-called MAHA movement. RFK has softened his stance on climate change, was silent as the Trump administration rolled back environmental protections to limit mercury exposure, and has agreed with Trump to “keep his hands off oil and gas”."
 
Mother Jones reported on the new members that RFK Jr appointed to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). Kiera Butler and Anna Merlan wrote, "Toby Rogers is an anti-vaccine activist and fellow at the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, a libertarian think tank founded in 2021 which opposed Covid safety measures during the pandemic. Rogers has said he believes that vaccines are the primary cause of autism, and he often uses extreme rhetoric to express this view. Vaccines, he has said, are “genocidal,” and vaccine makers, he argued in an article last year on the Brownstone Institute website, “enslave society.” He believes that “no thinking person vaccinates.” In a 2024 tweet, Rogers argued that Anthony Fauci was “in the same league as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. He must be arrested and prosecuted.” He also has a habit of waxing conspiratorial on X. Earlier this month, for example, he mused, “What if the entire Covid disaster—the design and release of SARS-CoV-2, lockdowns, masks, social distancing, censorship, the suppression of effective meds, Remdesivir, the toxic Covid shots, etc.—was engineered by AI to increase the power of AI?”"

They continued, "In a statement, Alison Singer, the president of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a body that focuses on funding actual scientific research and evidence-based autism interventions, called the new committee “a complete and unprecedented overhaul, with no continuity from prior committees and a striking absence of scientific experts.”"
 
Dr. David Gorski examined the loss of Ph.D. scientists from the federal government. He wrote, "
By January 20, 2029, when that candidate will take office, the vast majority of the scientists who have been forced out will have either found other jobs in industry (or, less likely, academia), left the US to find work elsewhere, or been forced to change their careers. The “just hire them back” attitude shows a profound lack of understanding of how scientific programs are built. Here’s a graphical representation of the carnage in terms of overall staffing at key federal scientific agencies, many at HHS:

Line graph showing percentage change in staff levels from 2016 to 2024 for nine U.S. agencies. Most agencies show a staff increase around 2020, followed by a sharp decline, especially in 2024.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Dr. David Gorski examined the loss of Ph.D. scientists from the federal government. He wrote, "
By January 20, 2029, when that candidate will take office, the vast majority of the scientists who have been forced out will have either found other jobs in industry (or, less likely, academia), left the US to find work elsewhere, or been forced to change their careers. The “just hire them back” attitude shows a profound lack of understanding of how scientific programs are built. Here’s a graphical representation of the carnage in terms of overall staffing at key federal scientific agencies, many at HHS:

Line graph showing percentage change in staff levels from 2016 to 2024 for nine U.S. agencies. Most agencies show a staff increase around 2020, followed by a sharp decline, especially in 2024.
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From the same article:

"Worse, as RFK Jr. implants his MAHA agenda into every HHS agency, the scientists hired over the next three years to replace some of the ones forced out will likely all have to bend the knee to the MAHA agenda. Many will be believers or at least sympathetic to MAHA, and they will have reshaped the federal science workforce, and a new President dedicated to restoring past norms won’t be able just to purge them the way that President Trump has purged so many scientists from the federal government."
 
Flo said:
From the same article:

"Worse, as RFK Jr. implants his MAHA agenda into every HHS agency, the scientists hired over the next three years to replace some of the ones forced out will likely all have to bend the knee to the MAHA agenda. Many will be believers or at least sympathetic to MAHA, and they will have reshaped the federal science workforce, and a new President dedicated to restoring past norms won’t be able just to purge them the way that President Trump has purged so many scientists from the federal government."
Click to expand...
They may just have to, then rebuild the agency from the ground up properly. It will take time...and money.
 
Politico interviewed pediatric surgeon Kirk Milhoan, chair of the APIC. "Americans should view the panel “more as a safety committee,” Kirk Milhoan told POLITICO. “Efficacy will be secondary,” he said...In the year ahead, he wants the committee to focus on sussing out risk — including for vaccines already on the recommended list — which he says has been ignored in some cases. “If you’re not looking for safety signals, you won’t necessarily find them,” he said." In response, Demetre "Daskalakis said that sounded like an excuse to find reasons to discourage vaccination. Safety data is already meticulously tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration and safety signals that emerge are thoroughly investigated, he argued."

Politico continued, "The committee’s role began to shift in 2025, he said, as Kennedy left it out of changes to the Covid recommendations and the panel abandoned best practices, such as its evidence-to-recommendation framework of reviewing existing vaccine data. In June, the panel dropped that framework and began devoting chunks of its meetings to presentations by vaccine skeptics...American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson Molly O’Shea thinks that’s by design. “The way Secretary Kennedy is running HHS seems to be if ACIP agrees with his approach, and they can come to a quick decision …. they will definitely be part of the process,” she said. Otherwise, O’Shea said, Kennedy has shown he is willing to leave them out."
 
Paul Offit (Beyond the Noise) explored the connection between MAHA and the supplement industry. "Jonathan Emord, general counsel for the Alliance for Natural Health, saw the appointment of RFK Jr. to head Health and Human Services as a chance to move the wellness industry to the center of public health. “The greatest opportunity of our lifetimes is before us,” he said."

Dr. Offit continued, "On January 13, 2026, under pressure from RFK Jr., the FDA has now deleted its warnings about the harm of bogus autism therapies. The FDA webpage previously titled “Be Aware of Potentially Dangerous Products and Therapies that Claim to Treat Autism” is now defunct. Kaiser Family Foundation Health News recently reported that Kennedy and his allies have made millions promoting unproven wellness products—a $6.3 trillion worldwide industry. RFK Jr. is not about to let the FDA restrict the industry that supports him and his MAHA movement. He’s not going to bite the hand that feeds him."

Last month Dr. Offit discussed Tylenol (acetaminophen) at Beyond the Noise. "First, the timeline didn’t add up. Tylenol entered the United States market in 1955. With increased use, a rise in autism should have occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, not in the 1990s. The rise in the incidence of autism in the 1990s was caused in large part by a broadening of the definition of the disorder and increased awareness, not Tylenol use."
 
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Is it time for some of these more responsible scientists to start running parallel private websites to the official government health websites? These parallel sites can offer what really should be on the official ones, all fully researched and verifiable, etc. In short, what the official websites should be if they were run responsibly like they were previously.
 
dirtywick said:
privatizing that kind of thing requires some way to make it profitable to do so
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They could probably get away with curated links to other countries sites that haven't fallen down the idiot hole.
There'll be some differences in the presentation and what's prioritised in the information but it'll do the trick until y'all can get your infrastructure out of the hands of loons
 
dirtywick said:
privatizing that kind of thing requires some way to make it profitable to do so
Click to expand...
GoFundMe seems to be able to rake in millions for good causes. And if each American gave just one single dollar just once, there would be hundreds of millions of dollars available. And best-practice American health research and advice would seem to be a very good cause, IMHO.
 
At Science-Based Medicine Jonathan Howard wrote, "MAHA doctors also spoke confidently about education policy, pediatric mental health, responsible science communications, the first amendment, social media moderation policies, and literally everything related to pandemic. I can’t recall an instance of them saying “I am not an expert in that, so I am not going to comment.” Like all gurus, they knew everything, but aside from making content, they didn’t do much."
 
Dr. Peter Hotez commented on Facebook about Jay Bhattacharya's appearance before a senate committee. "Here's the real problem. The Q&A today was at middle school level. For how long can we tolerate this level of mediocrity? Our nation's biosecurity has collapsed: we have no plans for big ticket pathogens like zoonotic flu, next coronavirus hitting U.S.. No plans if yellow fever entered the country; we have zero YF vaccine stockpiled. No plans for the return for measles, pertussis, meningitis, and no plans for Russia, DPRK, Iran, China making bioweapons pathogens. Our HHS leaders are ignorant, incurious, and incapable of doing substantive work. That's our reality."

Fierce Biotech covered this senate hearing: "“The NIH has terminated or frozen $273 million in cancer research since Trump was inaugurated,” [Senator Bernie] Sanders continued, citing a new report his office released Feb. 3. “In total, the NIH has terminated or frozen at least $561 million in research and defunded more than 300 clinical trials dealing with heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, dementia and pediatric brain tumors,” Sanders said. Democratic Washington Sen. Patricia Murray had an exact number—in less than six months, the Trump administration terminated 383 active NIH clinical trials, including 118 cancer studies, she said."

Fierce reported, "When Hassan asked again if an impact study of the disruption [from cancelled trials] was being conducted, Bhattacharya said he didn’t believe that patients’ care was disrupted. The federal agency leader then added that even if there was a disruption to trials, “It is the responsibility of the researchers that were managing the patients, not the NIH.” “That is really an unacceptable and outrageous response,” Hassan replied. “I know that [in] my state there were disruptions in these studies that have really put patients at risk,” she said a moment later. “And you all should be interested in that data, and you should be working to find out whether it happened.”"

Jonathan Howard critiqued the Memoli/Bhattacharya plan for the next pandemic here. He wrote, "I will limit my discussion to their actual plan to handle a new virus. It was very different from the GBD [Great Barrington Declaration] and its foundational principle of focused protection. Dr. Bhattacharya’s new plan is much simpler: vulnerable people should stop being vulnerable." Yet, "healthy people are not totally spared from dangerous viruses, and while many diseases can be altered with lifestyle adjustments, many others cannot. My patients with advanced MS can’t regrow myelin by hitting the gym, and no one can reverse aging, the top risk factor for severe COVID. Babies were also highly vulnerable, and we have no idea whom a novel pathogen may target."
 
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Science also covered the Senate hearing; "Several Democrats, including Senators Patty Murray (WA) and Ed Markey (MA), cited a November 2025 analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine finding that cuts and freezes on grants at some universities halted some 380 clinical trials enrolling 74,000 patients. That number of trials “is not reality,” testified Bhattacharya, who claimed most grants had been restarted after having “the political component” removed. He said his staff’s preliminary estimate is that “only about a dozen” clinical trials were terminated and patients in disrupted trials had “continuity of care.”"

Last year at SBM David Weinberg discussed the cancellation of clinical trials sponsored by USAID. "If a clinical trial is terminated prior to the prescribed end, the question the trial was meant to answer will remain unanswered and much, if not all, of the resources invested will have been wasted." He later wrote about the cancellation of a large diabetes study, stating, "I discussed the direct and collateral effects of the sudden, unplanned termination of these [USAID] studies. These are equally applicable to the sudden unplanned defunding of the DPPOS."
 
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Dr. David Gorski discussed Gardisil at SBM recently. He wrote, "...as I have long predicted (and the mention of polio aside), the next target for the newly antivax CDC after the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is going to be the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, primarily Gardasil in this country: ACIP puts HPV vaccine back under the microscope, 20 years after approval. Remember Retsef Levi, the utterly unqualified and incompetent operation management professor who thinks he knows vaccines, public health, and infectious disease? According to Demasi, “MIT professor Retsef Levi will lead a new workgroup to re-examine the HPV vaccine, including its effectiveness, dosing, safety, and long-term population outcomes.”
 
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