Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Donald Trump’s Nominee For HHS Secretary Robert. F Kennedy Jr. Creating A Golden Age Of Pseudoscience And Misinformation
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor about President Trump’s unqualified and dangerous nominee for Secretary of Health And Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before his upcoming confirmation hearing. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Tomorrow, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on his nomination to become the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I cannot recall a nominee more dangerous to the health of Americans than Mr. Kennedy. HHS is an agency that depends on science, evidence, and impartiality to ensure the wellbeing of over 330 million Americans. They ensure we eat safe food, purchase reliable medications, oversee Medicare benefits, and approve the use of life-saving vaccines.
Mr. Kennedy, however, is unprepared. His positions have shifted from month to month, moment to moment. He is neither a doctor nor a scientist nor a public health expert nor a policy expert of any kind. When I met with him, he would not answer many questions directly, saying he would defer to the president, who also is hardly a health expert.
And in fact, Mr. Kennedy has made a living not by promoting public health, but by actively fighting it. He is the face of the modern anti-vaccine movement, responsible for spreading fringe and outright false beliefs about vaccines.
Now of course, tomorrow we will hear a very different Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He will pretend as if he’s now found religion on vaccines, or that his words have been twisted unfairly, or that he never intended to say he is anti-vaccines.
Nobody should believe Mr. Kennedy’s 11th hour conversion on vaccines. Instead, he should be held accountable for the misinformation he has spread for decades.
He must answer not only for spreading wild vaccine conspiracies, but also for spreading many other outrageous claims over the years, from saying antidepressants cause mass shootings, to saying AIDS might not be caused by HIV, and claiming COVID spared certain ethnic groups.
In fact, Mr. Kennedy should answer for the many conflicts of interests he holds with the anti-vaccine movement. According to his financial disclosures he has made millions by recommending clients to law firms suing vaccine-makers. In fact, this was the primary source of his income this past year.
A quote from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board – certainly no friend of Democrats – said it best: “The risk is high that Mr. Kennedy will use his power and pulpit at HHS to enrich his trial-lawyer friends at the expense of public health and medical innovation.” That's not some liberal publication. That's the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.
Donald Trump promised to bring a Golden Age to America on day one. But if Mr. Kennedy is confirmed, it will be a Golden Age for pseudoscience and possibly even self-dealing in our government.
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