RFK Jr.’s Deadly War on Science
Steven Harper for Common Dreams
“If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take
them away,” he said. “People ought to have choice…”
Kennedy is not a doctor or a scientist, but he got the job
as America’s top public health officer. Now he’s making the wrong choices for
all of us.
What Happened
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for
Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) report to Kennedy. As with flu shots, the
agencies have approved and recommended Covid-19 vaccines as they have been
adjusted annually to deal with the evolving virus.
On May 20, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad,
director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, announced a new obstacle to FDA approval of any
Covid-19 vaccine. For healthy Americans under 65, it must be subjected to large scale and time-consuming clinical trials. That data
will replace the prior requirement of evidence showing only
an immune response, which was the basis for approving the initial “Project Warp
Speed” vaccines and all subsequent boosters.
Makary and Prasad asserted that they’re merely requiring
“gold-standard data on persons at low risk.” But by not requiring
such randomized, placebo-controlled trials for the elderly and other high-risk
groups, they’re conceding that the vaccine prevents infection.
Even trying to follow the new requirement poses problems.
It’s unethical to perform a clinical study that would give
some people a worthless placebo instead of a vaccine, according to Dr. Paul
Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the University of
Pennsylvania:
[W]e have a vaccine that works, given that we know that SARS-CoV2 continues to circulate and cause hospitalizations and death, and there’s no group that has no risk.
What Should Have Happened
Every year, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
to the CDC—a nonpartisan group of medical and scientific experts—considers the
latest studies, data, and possible side effects of both old and new vaccines.
It develops recommendations that the CDC’s director can accept, modify, or
reject.
The transparent process culminates in a schedule that
pediatricians throughout the country use to decide the safest and most
effective ages at which to vaccinate children. Insurance companies use the CDC
schedule to determine the vaccines they will cover.
Kennedy didn’t wait for the Advisory Committee. Three days
after the FDA’s announcement of its new approval requirement, Kennedy posted
a video on X, with Commissioner Makary at his side:
I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today the
Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been
removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.
The blowback from the medical community was immediate.
Every week in the United States, Covid-19 still kills 300 people and hundreds more are hospitalized. It’s
the fourth leading cause of death overall and in the top
10 among children. And a new strain surging in Asia has now arrived here.
On May 30, the CDC walked back Kennedy’s proclamation with
an update: For children between six months and 17 years old,
the CDC now recommends “shared decision-making” between the
physician and the patient or patient and guardian in determining whether to get
the vaccine.
Healthy adults are still off the CDC’s list. And for
pregnant women—all of whom are at greater risk of Covid-19 complications—the CDC’s
positions are internally contradictory. Its new schedule no longer recommends that they get
vaccinated. But the CDC continues to recommend the vaccine to anyone with “underlying conditions”—one of which is pregnancy. Meanwhile
newborns who depend on their vaccinated mothers for immunity have the same likelihood of hospitalization and death from
Covid-19 as someone who is 70 years old.
What Happens When Republicans Fear Trump More Than
Endangering Public Health
Exhaustive studies have demonstrated that the vaccine
is effective across all age groups. According to data
published by the National Institutes of Health—another agency that Kennedy
supervises—it has prevented millions of hospitalizations and saved millions of lives.
During Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
asked Kennedy to acknowledge that the Covid-19 vaccine had saved millions of
people.
“I don’t think anybody can say that,” Kennedy replied.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, expressed concerns
about Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views. But he overcame those reservations, perhaps
because Republican primary challengers on
the right were already telling Louisiana voters in the upcoming election that
Cassidy was insufficiently loyal to Trump. After voting to convict Trump for
his role in the January 6 insurrection, the Louisiana Republican Party’s
executive committee censured him.
Cassidy said that he voted to confirm Kennedy only after
“intense conversations” that included Kennedy’s promise to “maintain the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices’ recommendations without changes.”
Until Kennedy broke that promise, the decision to get a
Covid-19 vaccine was an individual choice. To promote public health,
the vaccine’s presence on the CDC’s guidance schedule assured that it would be
free to those who wanted it.
Now, as with many Trump policies, the cost of a Covid-19
vaccine will hit hardest those adults who can least afford it. But when they
don’t get vaccinated, the public at large will bear the
consequences: More Americans will be hospitalized with Covid-19 and more will
die.
Blame Kennedy, of course, but he is who he always has been.
Trump and Senate Republicans—especially Sen. Cassidy—knew it when they gave him
the job that is killing us.
Steven Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa -- A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble -- A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at https://thelawyerbubble.com.
