Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. is an apple that fell and rolled a long ways from a glorious tree
When I was a boy, Robert F. Kennedy was my hero. After his brother appointed him as our attorney general, RFK was a stalwart fighter for civil rights for Black Americans, and he cracked down on Jimmy Hoffa, the tainted leader of the Teamsters union.
Just months after JFK's assassination in November, 1963, RFK jumped into the U.S. Senate race in New York and ousted a moderate Republican incumbent in the midst of Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. As a teenage Democrat in upstate New York, I was thrilled to have shaken RFK’s hand several times. We never had a deep conversation, but he was my senator.
In the 1968 presidential election, RFK jumped into the presidential race as Johnson faltered in the face of increasing opposition to his escalation of the war in Vietnam. After Johnson withdrew from the race, Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic frontrunner, but Kennedy gained ground with a series of impressive primary election victories, and I became convinced that he could ultimately win the presidency and bring peace in Vietnam.
Of course, that was not to be. On the night that he won the primary race in California (and also triumphed in South Dakota, after making an appearance on the Pine Ridge Reservation), Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Humphrey went on to win the Democratic nomination, and then lost a close race to Richard Nixon that November.
The assassination, which was very upsetting to most Americans, had to be devastating for his son and namesake, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who was just 14 at the time. He must have believed that his father was destined to be the next president, and then he was gone. While RFK’s material needs were taken care of, one can only imagine the mental and emotional harm that he suffered.
It was a terribly cruel loss, for the country and especially for the Kennedy family.
One could argue that RFK Jr. has been seeking recognition, and an opportunity to carry on the family legacy ever since that tragic day 57 years ago. Over the years, he became an environmental lawyer and a prominent vaccine skeptic. He has touted the virtues of drinking raw milk and using cod liver oil.
RFK Jr. has also shown signs of mental instability, which is hardly surprising. Famously, he once dumped a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park.
When he was interviewed on a podcast in June of last year, Kennedy made a stunning revelation about his adolescence.
“I was at the bottom of my class, I started doing heroin, I went to the top of my class,” he said. “Suddenly, I could sit still and read.”
We could search for a long time for an expert who would tout the advantages of an extremely addictive narcotic drug as a viable treatment for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), but RFK Jr. was certainly not the first (or last) teenager to self-medicate.
While Kennedy has never held an elective office, he did make a quixotic run for the presidency last year, first as a Democrat and then as an independent. When that effort predictably fizzled, he teamed up with another prominent New Yorker of questionable mental stability, our current president, Donald Trump.
It would appear that Trump has assigned each Cabinet position to the man or woman who would use it to do the greatest damage to our society. Thus RFK, Jr. finds himself installed as secretary of health and human services, just as measles is making a disturbing comeback and speculation grows that the bird flu may be our next human pandemic.
He is using his newfound power to promote conspiracy theories and to reduce public confidence in doctors and modern medicine. He recently made the startling promise that the cause of autism will be revealed by September, just four months from now.
In an April 29 interview on Dr. Phil McGraw’s YouTube channel, RFK Jr. promised to investigate the supposed Chemtrail conspiracy: perhaps the white trails left behind by airplanes are a biological weapon which affects both the weather and human minds.
Of course, he doubled down on vaccine skepticism: “Many of the parents have reported … that their child developed autism immediately after the vaccine.”
While the alleged connection between measles vaccines and autism has repeatedly been debunked, RFK Jr. asserted that “part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research.”
Historically, HHS secretaries of both parties have used their position to encourage better public health outcomes, including herd immunity through universal acceptance of well-established vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is disrupting health care in this country in a way that could have disastrous consequences.
Jay Davis is a retired Rapid City lawyer and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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