The Truth about RFK Jr

[Planigale]

Yea, but her acetaminophen doesn't have the dyes and added chemicals Tylenol puts in, so it's safe acetaminophen.

But she should use aspirin which is natural and extracted from willow bark to treat fever in children*

*Do not use aspirin to treat fever in infants it may be natural unlike acetaminophen, but it does cause Reye's syndrome (liver failure) unlike artficial acetaminophen.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At SBM Jonathan Howard quoted Martin Kulldorff's tweet from December of 2020: "If the young live normal lives, some will be infected, but their risk is less than from lockdown collateral damage. Pandemic will then be naturally over in 3-6 months. Lockdowns just prolonged the pandemic while completely failing
to protect the old."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At Respectful Insolence Orac reviewed last week's press conference, writing in part, "Let's just say that it was even worse than I feared that it would be, a veritable firehosing Gish gallop of autism pseudoscience, anecdotes, and, yes, antivax disinformation that presented bogus "findings" that acetaminophen use during pregnancy is linked with autism as fact and proposed using leucovorin...we knew nearly 20 years ago that most Amish do vaccinate (one survey said 84%), which makes the claim pretty much nonense."

Orac responded to Marty Makary's statement on acetaminophen by saying, "Yes, which is why you can find studies that claim to find links between vaccines and autism but guess what? You're supposed to look at the best studies and weight them the highest, while giving much less weight to less rigorous or smaller studies. Makary does the excact opposite, ignoring (and presumably dismissing) and weigh the weaker studies, well, a lot less...Naturally, though, Makary picked much smaller and methodologically less rigorous studies to highlight and dismissed the Swedish study as, in essence, one of those "studies to the contrary" without even mentioning it. He also cites Andrea Baccarelli , the Dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health...Baccarelli has been paid $150,000 to be an expert witness in Tylenol lawsuits. Also, Dr. Oz has an interest in iHerb, a company that sells folinic acid supplements. Remember, it's always about the grift."

Near the end he wrote, "I didn't even mention the autism research "initiative" that Jay Bhattacharya trumpeted, which will no doubt disburse precious NIH money to dubious researchers who couldn't have possibly competed successfully for it before."

Orac linked to Dr. Andrea Love's blog Immunologic for a rebuttal of a putative link between autism and acetaminophen. Dr. Love wrote, "Acetaminophen is the only recommended pain and fever reducer in pregnancy, and untreated fever and pain pose legitimate risks to pregnancy outcomes...Among the paid witnesses was Andrea Baccarelli, an endocrinologist with no toxicology or pharmacology background who proclaims to be an expert in “environmental exposures.”

Dr. Love stated that the Baccarelli review article that appeared in BMC Environmental Health, "relies heavily on studies whose data center on self-reported recall of Tylenol use years after pregnancy. If you can’t guess, this is an incredibly weak way to measure exposure, since people’s memories are notoriously fallible...Baccarelli’s courtroom claims that had no scientific credibility were repackaged, polished, and published. This is a deliberate legal strategy to fuel pseudoscience, chemophobia, and lawsuits built on unfounded fears. Media outlets and academic institutes are directly contributing to this, by branding this predatory publication as a “Harvard study” (that’s where Baccarelli works) without giving it any degree of scrutiny."

 

[dudalb]

Indeed, but to MAGA/MAHA folks it comes across as, "At last someone is willing to tell the truth." The medical professionals I know personally are literally aghast at what this man is doing to decades of medical knowledge.

I maintain it his obssesion with revenge...Trump blames sceince based medicine for his 6taking a big hit in 2020 over his handling of covid.
This country will take decades to repaire the damage this insane idiot is doing.
And I really hate the GOP for going along; a lot of them have to know better.

Don't tariffs have to apply to physical objects? What precisely can be tariffed here? The photons?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The Harvard Crimson reported, "Harvard School of Public Health Dean Andrea A. Baccarelli received at least $150,000 to testify against Tylenol’s manufacturer in 2023 — two years before he published research used by the Trump administration to link the drug to autism, a connection experts say is tenuous at best."

At SBM in 2024 Clay Jones discussed the Tylenol lawsuit, which is connected to current events because Dr. Baccarelli was one of the five expert witnesses indicated below. Dr. Jones quoted a Reuters article: "Cote, in a 148-page ruling, found that none of the five expert witnesses proposed by the plaintiffs had offered a sound scientific methodology to support their opinion that Tylenol’s active ingredient, acetaminophen, could cause autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Instead, the unstructured approach adopted by the plaintiffs’ experts permitted cherry-picking, allowed a results-driven analysis, and obscured the complexities, inconsistencies, and weaknesses in the underlying data,” she wrote."

 

[dann]

RFK Jr. appears to have confused morbidity with mortality:

morbidity: n. the state of being ill or having a disease. See also incidence rate, prevalence. (Oxford reference)

Secretary Kennedy on X, Sep 30, 2025
To elevate America’s health, restore public trust, and reclaim our reputation for integrity and gold-standard science, @POTUS’s HHS will challenge even the most sacred public health dogmas through open debate and disciplined scientific scrutiny.
Watch as I shred @SenatorCantwell's chart from my recent hearing—a chart she used to argue that vaccines saved hundreds of millions of American lives by pointing to the 20th-century decline in infectious diseases.

With a video (7:15 min.)

Benjamin Mazer on X, Sep 29, 2025
This is pretty funny, you've posted a lengthy video 'debunking' a chart you simply misread. The figure shows the decline in INFECTIONS, not deaths. This is clearly due to mass vaccination programs.

Besides, vaccine advocates don't claim "that vaccines alone (!) saved all (!) of those lives." (at 5:23-->)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At Beyond the Noise Paul Offit discussed the Hepatitis B vaccine. Dr. Offit wrote, "...only half of the 30,000 children less than 10 years of age in 1991 had acquired the disease from their mother! The rest were infected from relatively casual contact with people who were chronically infected with hepatitis B virus, most of whom didn’t know they were infected. (This is why hepatitis B is called “The Silent Epidemic”.) People infected with hepatitis B virus can have as many as 10 billion infectious particles per milliliter of blood. And the virus can live on surfaces for up to seven days...In October 2025, the ACIP will likely recommend delaying the birth dose for hepatitis B vaccine. They will argue that other countries like Denmark don’t give the vaccine until 2 months of age. But Denmark has a much lower incidence of hepatitis B infections and is much better at performing prenatal screening. We aren’t Denmark."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At SBM David Gorski discussed RFK Jr 's hiring antivax activist Mark Blaxill, quoting a news report that indicated that Mr. Blaxill is neither a scientist nor a physician. Dr. Gorski wrote, "Exactly. What we have is yet another antivax activist and conspiracy theorist with zero relevant qualifications for any job in public health. Seeing Blaxill hired now, after RFK Jr. cronies like David Geier, Lynn Redwood (who, according to Zadrozny, joined the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Office with the title of “expert”) and others, I’m left with a painful question: Who’s the next antivaxxer who’ll be hired by RFK Jr.?"

 

[Darat]

The review authors themselves stated they "cannot answer the causation question."

That's because they aren't geniuses like Trump and RFK.

 

[Flo]

Autism, Tylenol, superstitions …

 

[Darat]

That's a good video getting to the heart of the matter.

 

[dann]

I have another one, and this one is not a fictitious retelling of reality. Actual MAGAts believing the AI video about MedBeds :
MAGA Dad Falls for AI MedBed Scam: Hilarious Reaction! (The Dusty Show on YouTube - 2:19 min.)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At Unbiased Science Dr. Steier critiqued RFK Jr's claims regarding sanitation versus vaccination. Dr. Steier wrote, "Kass wasn’t saying choose sanitation over vaccines—he was advocating for using multiple layers of protections. Kennedy strips away Kass’s call for both/and, presenting it as either/or. It’s intellectual dishonesty at its finest: citing an expert who actually argued for the opposite of what you’re claiming." Dr. Steier continued, "Sanitation conquered waterborne killers like cholera and typhoid. Vaccines defeated airborne killers like measles and polio. Antibiotics rescued children from bacterial complications. Nutrition and housing improvements built resilience."

 

[Mojo]

RFK Jr fires top NIH scientist weeks after she files whistleblower complaint

Jeanne Marrazzo’s complaint reportedly involved the Trump administration’s hostility toward vaccines

www.theguardian.com

 

[dann]

Dr. Angela Rasmussen on X, Oct 5, 2025
“I fear for public health in our country.”
Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry says that the national US public health system has been subjected to a “hostile takeover” and she’s right. We should all share her fears. Kennedy must go.

A ‘hostile takeover’: ousted CDC official raises alarm over RFK Jr approach to infectious disease (TheGuardian, Oct 4, 2025)
“During the measles outbreak, when he was saying incorrect things about vaccines – like they killed people or they had fetal parts – I sent notes to our CDC leadership team to share about how we could help him, and if there were ways we could send talking points to him,” Houry said. But her attempts to brief the secretary were rejected, she said.
Measles wasn’t the only pathogen of concern. Child deaths from influenza soared to the highest rate ever seen outside of a flu pandemic, bird flu became even harder to track, and Covid continued circulating, disabling, and killing Americans.
“We would have loved to have the conversations with him,” Houry testified at the hearing in September.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe briefly discussed acetaminophen at In the Pipeline. He wrote, "This article at the Guardian does a very good job in a short space of dealing with the topic, and it illustrates how the administration’s spin on this is deliberately deceptive. And I mean that. We’re not talking about just a difference of opinion about medical or scientific issues. The document issued by the Trump White House literally double-counts studies to make it look as if there is more evidence in their favor, while ignoring other studies that do not support its conclusion. It also completely ignores any genetic factors and (very importantly) also ignores expansions in diagnostic criteria over the years and overall monitoring of such symptoms. As mentioned above, even its direct links to the literature do not support what is claimed in the text. Although it is dressed up like some sort of dispassionate review of the literature, it is a tendentious document written with intent to deceive."

 

[Norman Alexander]

Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe briefly discussed acetaminophen at In the Pipeline. He wrote, "This article at the Guardian does a very good job in a short space of dealing with the topic, and it illustrates how the administration’s spin on this is deliberately deceptive. And I mean that. We’re not talking about just a difference of opinion about medical or scientific issues. The document issued by the Trump White House literally double-counts studies to make it look as if there is more evidence in their favor, while ignoring other studies that do not support its conclusion. It also completely ignores any genetic factors and (very importantly) also ignores expansions in diagnostic criteria over the years and overall monitoring of such symptoms. As mentioned above, even its direct links to the literature do not support what is claimed in the text. Although it is dressed up like some sort of dispassionate review of the literature, it is a tendentious document written with intent to deceive."

It REALLY needs a better headline. How about: "RFK Jr. ◊◊◊◊◊ On Science...Again"

 

[Chris_Halkides]

In response to a video that RFK Jr posted on X, Paul Offit discussed vaccination as a public health device. At Beyond the Noise Dr. Offit wrote, "Indeed, by focusing solely on deaths, RFK Jr. also failed to recognize the impact of permanent disabilities caused by other diseases such as blindness and deafness from measles, deafness from mumps. liver cancer from hepatitis B virus, cervical cancer from human papillomavirus (HPV), and congenital birth defects caused by rubella virus."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The host of Pandemic Accountability Index critiqued past and present calls for debate from Dr. Kulldorff and others. "Martin Kulldorff, head of the disgraced CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently claimed those unwilling to “debate” him and his anti-vaccine grifter panel members are “untrustworthy.” ...Since 2020, the public has been barraged with the message that the real problem with COVID-19 wasn’t all the death and disability caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but instead, that comfortable academics were personally inconvenienced and “debate” was stifled and censored. This wasn’t a genuine call for policy debates regarding the pandemic response, but instead, an advertising technique meant to enhance the value of the speaker’s arguments by putting down others. Unsupported by the facts, one has to create value for their opinions in other ways."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Recently RFK Jr uploaded a video disputing benefits of vaccination, in particular one chart shown during a recent hearing. At Science-Based Medicine David Gorski offered a rebuttal (see also comments #2713 and #2718), focusing on some of the papers RFK Jr cited. RFK stated, "The vaccine industry has long used this kind of chart as proof of the common claim that vaccines had saved hundreds of millions of American lives." Dr. Gorski responded, "First off, no one has claimed that. For one thing, the entire population of the US right now is only around 340 million, and that’s as high as our population has ever been, and, even if you ask how many Americans have ever lived, the number is less than double that, due to population growth over the last 250 years. So, right off the bat, RFK Jr. is constructing a straw man so massive, that, were it to be set on fire, it would be visible from the International Space Station. Second, no one uses that chart—or a chart like it—to estimate how many lives have been saved by vaccines."

Dr. Gorski noted an issue in how data are sometimes presented: "So, yes, there was a remarkable decline in mortality from 1900-1973. Of course, once again, this is inflating the denominator, because this is all mortality, not just mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases or childhood mortality."