As of time of writing, according to CBS News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the short list to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under the unfortunately upcoming second Trump administration. RFK’s HHS will see Hospitals Having Surges. If there’s one person we want steering the ship for the country’s health, it’s the dude with brain worms. Why? Because it means we’re entering the era of the BORE WORMS. Not the bore worms!
Before we get into the weeds with RFK looking for parasites to put in hospital drinking water, we need to address the bear carcass in the room. There’s going to be a Republican majority in the senate. So if you watch this or read about his ideas and agree that he would do harm as a member of the cabinet, what can you do? Aren’t they just going to confirm him anyway? To that I say 1) never resign without a fight and 2) I wouldn’t be so sure of that conclusion. Call and email your senator with any concerns you might have, especially if they’re a Republican senator. Talk to your friends and family and get them to do the same. There will be a few votes that are gettable and can be persuaded to go against Trump sycophancy if not for the good of the country and their constituents, then because we can make it seem like a yes vote for his nomination would be bad for their political futures.
First Worm: Vaccines
Of course if someone is a crank conspiracy theorist overtaken by the bore worms, they’re going to have some wack thoughts about vaccines. That includes the one every moron on the planet has: vaccines cause autism. RFK Jr has a history of linking vaccines to autism. So. There’s no evidence for this. There is quite literally no science backing this claim up. HBomberguy has an excellent video going over the man largely responsible for this lie. Go watch it.
Back when Kennedy was still pretending to be any sort of left-leaning figure running for the Democratic nomination in 2024, he did an interview with NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny. Zadrozny writes, “Kennedy tells me he still believes he was right about thimerosal and autism, despite the decades of published scientific research that shows otherwise. For Kennedy, even the assumption that childhood vaccines work is up for argument.” Kennedy went on to claim, “that vaccines have been given undue credit for eradicating infectious diseases, when sanitation and nutrition played a larger role.”
So Kennedy is not only a conspiracy believing moron who insists vaccines cause autism despite no reputable source ever being able to find this supposed connection, he also simply thinks vaccines don’t work. This is because Kennedy is an idiot. The brain worms probably didn’t cause him much of a problem because they had so very little to feast on.
You know what’s really offensive here? Is it that an idiot is pushing stupid theories with no backing to a bunch of other idiots so he can grift them out of their money and kill their children? No. Kennedy had to apologize for comparing kids going autistic by vaccine, a thing that doesn’t happen, to the Holocaust. That’s right: autistic children existing, according to Kennedy, is as bad as the systematic torture and murder of 6 million Jews.
As will all vaccine conspiracists who prefer dead children to autistic children, he has a documented history of simply lying. In 2005, he published an anti-vaccine screed in Salon which had to be updated multiple times to correct basic errors, lies, misstatements, and botched quotations. Salon eventually pulled the article down because of how shit it was and how harmful it was. We probably shouldn’t have a head of the HHS who either can’t separate fact from fiction or doesn’t care about scientific truth because he’s found people who will pay him to indulge their idiotic fantasies.
In Robert Kennedy’s world, it is better for your child to be dead from a preventable disease than to be autistic. In Robert Kennedy’s world, to be autistic is to be braindead. In Robert Kennedy’s world, an autistic child is the same as a child made a corpse in a gas chamber. What signal would that be sending to our children, to autistic adults, to the rest of the world to say that we would let conspiracy theorists who do not give a damn about facts kill our children because they despise neurodivergence? So how do you oppose Kennedy’s potential nomination? You go groups of parents of autistic children and you show them Kennedy’s comments. You tell them he thinks their children are braindead. He thinks their children would be better off sick and dying of measles than autistic. See how quickly they will get enraged.
As Time Magazine puts it, Kennedy’s “misinformation super-spreading has even been linked to a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019.” So Kennedy will likely see us toward an explosive increase in preventable diseases in this country. But wait, you might say, caring about other people’s health clearly isn’t a concern for Republican politicians, look at how they hated giving a shit about Covid. So here’s an argument for the people who pretend to only care about money: an economy of the sick is bad for your wallet. As we learned during COVID, when our medical infrastructure is overrun with those suffering an infectious disease whose spread is made worse by people refusing vaccination, it’s harder to get seen for anything else. You may go sicker for longer. Your doctor’s visits might take up more of your time meaning you’re working less meaning you’re making less. Your children might catch rubella and rack up giant hospital bills meaning you might get to lose both a child and your house. Isn’t that fun?
Or how about your health insurance premiums: increasing the amount of horribly sick people is going to drive up insurance prices even for the perfectly healthy.
Or how about just thinking about how maybe, maybe, we shouldn’t increase the instances of deadly diseases because you’re a contrarian little asshat.
If we ease up on vaccination requirements for public schools, I’m quite certain private schools will very quickly impose strict vaccination requirements on their students. This will result in fearmongering about public schools being a place of disease. Education in this country will collapse.
Robert Kennedy is a dangerous man who is dangerously stupid. We cannot let him have a say in the health of our children because, to put it simply, they will die. His rhetoric and ideas around vaccines will kill them. Kennedy would oversee a mass casualty event among our children. Hm. Maybe, if he’s nominated for anything, we should raise hell opposing him. And if he’s appointed to a non-senate approved position, we should still annoy our senators to bother the White House until he’s fired for simply being a source of annoyance for them.
Second Worm: Violence
While looking at the stupid shit Kennedy has said about vaccines, I came across another lovely idea he has: anti-depressants cause school shootings. Talking about school shootings with Elon Musk, because of course the bore worms are attracted to whatever Elon Musk is, Kennedy said, “Prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country.” I’m sure there’s a legal reason why this doesn’t count as defamation, but if I was Eli Lilly, I’d be quite upset at a prominent politician implying that our medication is the cause of school shootings. Perhaps so angry that I’d organize a lobbying campaign to make sure he’s nowhere near the White House or the Cabinet. Perhaps people should do outreach to Eli Lilly asking about Kennedy’s comments and pretending to believe his bullshit.
I used to be on Prozac so I feel like I can comment on this in a personal way: go fuck yourself. Did Prozac make me angry or violent? No. I’ve put in a lot of work over the course of my life to distance myself from anger. Did it increase my other emotions then? No. All that Prozac did for me is it stopped me from having panic attacks every single day which is what I wanted it to do. I’m not currently taking it. Am I quite sad? You know it.
It isn’t merely offensive to imply that people trying to heal and control their mental illnesses are behind some of the greatest evils known to contemporary man. It’s actively harmful. It will lead to further stigmatization of mental illness and its treatment. You know what banning Prozac isn’t going to do? Stop school shootings. It’s almost like the problem is a mixture of the guns and a culture that talks about how anger and hatred are fantastic.
You could take this without the context of Kennedy’s other opinions and think it’s the view of an idiot who doesn’t understand SSRIs. Or you could take it in with his broad belief in conspiracy. He thinks pharmaceutical companies are evil, so you have to be skeptical. And his skepticism makes him a complete moron who thinks science is bad. Or you could take it in context with how he clearly despises autistic people to come to the conclusion that RFK Jr is an ableist who despises anyone with any neuro-divergence or mental illness. He is a bigot who thinks it is a sign or immorality to be sick, who thinks it is worse to be “not normal” than to be dead. He would rather people kill themselves than take anti-depressants and he would rather children die than be autistic.
Third Worm: Fluoride
“The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water is considered by health officials to be one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.” That’s a quote from a CBS News article detailing the risks and benefits of water fluoridization, our practice in the United States of adding minuscule amounts of fluoride to drinking water. As detailed in that article, fluoride promotes tooth health, helping prevent cavities and decay. You’re probably aware that we do this and that fluorides dental health benefits are why almost every toothpaste talks about having fluoride. It is good for you.
Well, unless you happen to be over taken by the bore worms. Not the bore worms. Here’s what Kennedy has to say about it if he’s involved in the Trump administration, “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”
“Does IQ even exist and it can it be accurately measured if it does?” is a better question to ask than “Is the conspiracy theorist with a well-documented history of lying about health science right on this?” That’s because it’s sort of obvious that of course Kennedy is not being truthful here. These negative outcomes are associated with exposure levels… well over the amount we add to the water. Wow, shocker.
As CNN says, “Recent research examining the link between cancer and fluoride levels has not found an association.” Oops, guess he lied in that statement.
But let’s lead it back to people’s wallets since that’s supposedly what caused people to vote for Trump. What happens when there’s an increase in cavities and dental decay? Well, dental insurance premiums will go up. Demand for dental supplies will go up which will result in dental procedures being more expensive than they already are which is insanely depressing to think about. Consider, for a moment, that your fluoridated water is doing a bit more for you than you thought. It stops. You start getting more cavities. You’re shelling out more money every year for dental work that you might not have needed beforehand.
This just in: RFK Jr will make your life, the lives of your children, and the health of our nation worse and our healthcare more expensive as a result.
Final Worm: Brain Bore Worms
When it comes down to it, RFK Jr should be kept far away from any sort of political decision making because he’s a paranoid conspiracy theorist who has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about or does not care one bit about facts or how his rhetoric or policy proposals would hurt people. He’s a dangerous crank and everyone who promoted him in 2024 should be seriously examined for the same brain worms that he has. Is there a vaccine we can take to innoculate ourselves from Robert Kennedy Jr? Because you know who I want making policy decisions about health and science? Not the bore worms!
Sources:
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be on short list for HHS secretary, Trump allies say” - Alexander Tin | CBS News
“Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response” - Harris Brewer | HBomberguy YouTube
“Trump doesn't rule out banning vaccines if he becomes president: 'I'll make a decision'” - Dasha Burns & Alexandra Marquez | NBC News
“The conspiracy candidate: What RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine crusade could look like in the White House” - Brandy Zadrozny | NBC News
“Robert Kennedy Jr apologises for Holocaust reference in autism speech” - Joanna Walters | The Guardian
“Correcting our record” - Kerry Laureman | Salon
“Get Ready for a Catastrophic Four Years for Public Health” - Simon Williams | Time
“RFK Jr. Blames Anti-Depressants for School Shootings” - Miles Klee | Rolling Stone
“What to know about fluoride in water following RFK Jr.'s health claims” - Sara Moniuszko | CBS News
“RFK Jr. says fluoride is ‘an industrial waste’ linked to cancer, diseases and disorders. Here’s what the science says” - Nadia Kounang, Carma Hassan and Deidre McPhillips | CNN
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