More than 75 Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging senators not to confirm RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. “Placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of DHHS would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences,” the letter warned.
Reported by the New York Times earlier this week, the group cited RFK Jr.’s lack of credentials to lead the agency, his opposition to many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines, criticism of the positive effects of fluoride in drinking water, promotion of dangerous conspiracy theories about treatments for AIDS and depression, and suggesting, without evidence, that the COVID-19 pandemic was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
The group also noted RFK Jr.’s criticisms of respected and successful agencies tasked with protecting Americans’ health and wellness, like the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more about 75 Nobel Prize winners urging Senators not to put a public health conspiracy theorist in charge of public health:
- More than 75 Nobel Prize winners have signed a letter urging senators not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
- The letter marks the first time in recent memory that Nobel laureates have banded together against a Cabinet choice, according to Richard Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine, who helped draft the letter. The group tries to stay out of politics whenever possible, he said.
- The confirmation of Mr. Kennedy, a staunch critic of mainstream medicine who has been hostile to the scientists and agencies he would oversee, is a threat that the Nobel laureates could not ignore, Dr. Roberts said. “These political attacks on science are very damaging,” he said. “You have to stand up and protect it.”
- The laureates questioned whether Mr. Kennedy, who they said has “a lack of credentials” in medicine, science or administration, was fit to lead the department responsible for protecting public health and funding biomedical research.
- If confirmed, Mr. Kennedy’s opposition to well-established public health tools, like vaccines and the fluoridation of drinking water, would pose a risk to the country’s well-being, the letter said.
- The laureates decried Mr. Kennedy’s promotion of conspiracy theories. Mr. Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism, rejected established science showing that H.I.V. causes AIDS, and suggested, without evidence, that the coronavirus targeted and spared certain ethnic groups.
- The laureates also noted that Mr. Kennedy has been a “belligerent critic” of the agencies that would fall under his purview, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
- Mr. Kennedy has threatened to fire employees of the F.D.A., which he says has waged a “war on public health,” and has promised to replace hundreds of N.I.H. employees the day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
- More broadly, he said that vaccine scientists “should be in jail and the key should be thrown away,” according to NBC News.
- “The leader of DHHS should continue to nurture and improve — not to threaten — these important and highly respected institutions and their employees,” the letter said.
- Seventy-seven laureates — in medicine, chemistry, economics and physics — signed the letter. They included Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of microRNA, and Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, who won the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences for research on global inequality.
- Dr. Harold Varmus, a 1989 Nobel Prize laureate who signed the letter, said that scientific research — which depends on federal funding and helps drive the country’s economic growth — is impossible to disentangle from the political climate. “Science is dependent on the political structures of this country,” he said. “I don’t think we should be burying our heads in the sand just because we’re scientists.”
- Dr. Roberts hoped that this letter will be successful. Even if the letter swayed a small number of senators, he said, it might be enough to block Mr. Kennedy’s appointment. “Maybe there are some who will read this and think, Well, we really do want to protect the health of our citizens,” he said. “They didn’t elect us so that we could kill them.”
Published: Dec 11, 2024 | Last Modified: Dec 30, 2024