Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doubling down on the vaccine quackery and outlandish, potentially dangerous public health ideas he’s best known for.
Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist with no background in science, published a Wall Street Journal op-ed Tuesday defending his chaotic overhaul of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid growing calls for his resignation.
In the piece, the notorious anti-vaxxer blasted the CDC’s “dysfunction” and the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the rollout of lifesaving vaccines—dismissing them as “experimental and ineffective drugs” that he believes should not be prioritized over unproven alternatives.
“That dysfunction produced irrational policy during Covid: cloth masks on toddlers, arbitrary 6-foot distancing, boosters for healthy children, prolonged school closings, economy-crushing lockdowns, and the suppression of low-cost therapeutics in favor of experimental and ineffective drugs,” Kennedy wrote.
His reference to “low-cost therapeutics” can be interpreted as a nod to substances such as ivermectin, the anti-parasitic drug embraced by the anti-vaccine movement amid baseless claims it could prevent or treat COVID-19.
Kennedy’s claims directly contradict what even President Donald Trump has touted as his signature first-term achievement: Operation Warp Speed, the record-breaking vaccine rollout during the pandemic.
Until now, Trump has been happy to claim credit for the feat. Now, Kennedy says Trump has asked him to “restore that trust and return the CDC to its core mission.”
“The American people elected President Trump—not entrenched bureaucrats—to set health policy,” Kennedy wrote. “That is the MAHA commitment—Make America Healthy Again—in action.”
Kennedy went on to accuse the CDC—an agency his uncle helped build during his Senate career—of “squandering public trust” and “politicizing science.”
His harsh categorization comes in response to a New York Times op-ed published Monday from nine former CDC directors, who served under every president from Jimmy Carter to Trump. Their blunt headline: “We Ran the C.D.C. Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health.”
The former officials wrote that Kennedy’s tenure was “unlike anything our country had ever experienced,” and said his policies had “weakened” programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart disease, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more.
“Amid the largest measles outbreak in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines,” they wrote, referencing the 33-year high in U.S. measles cases this year.
Kennedy bizarrely touted his response to that outbreak as a success, writing in his op-ed: “The outbreak ended quickly, proving the CDC can act swiftly with precision when guided by science and freed from ideology.”
Kennedy has faced fierce opposition since his appointment—but none as intense as in recent weeks. The backlash crescendoed with the ousting of CDC Director Susan Monarez, who reportedly resisted Kennedy’s controversial vaccine directives before stepping down amid a broader exodus of leadership staff.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Kennedy for comment.
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