The second Senate confirmation hearing for Robert Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services concluded last Thursday, rendering him even less appealing than he already was and confirming to all that he is not fit for the role.
The primary concern with RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS is not that he believes that vaccines cause autism or that he suggested that the HPV vaccine causes cancer. It’s also not that he believes that the jury is still out on what happened on September 11, 2001. Those are concerning for sure but the real issue is that he lacks the basic ability to properly assess bodies of evidence, even when they clearly point to a specific conclusion, and lacks the ability to be receptive to counterevidence.
When RFK Jr claims that he cares about the health of Americans and that he wants to save children from chronic illness and preventable disease, I believe him. Maybe it’s just his gentle demeanor, but he seems genuine.
The big topic was always going to be about Kennedy’s long history of promoting vaccine skepticism and misinformation. Speaking in a podcast last July, he claimed that, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and that, “ … the current state of the science that shows clearly that vaccination is causing autism, that it’s one of a suite of autoimmune diseases that is really, that is ultimately coming from vaccines.”
On Thursday, he affirmed time after time that he was pro-vaccine. It was a clear lie given that, usually, when someone is pro-vaccine, they don’t typically have to ask for evidence that they’re safe.
Senator Bernie Sanders asked, “There have been, as I understand it, dozens of studies done all over the world that make it very clear that vaccines do not cause autism[…]Do you agree with that?” After not answering the question, Sanders asked again. Kennedy stated, “Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely, as I promised to chairman Cassey, I will apologize.”
As Senator Sanders pointed out, “the studies are there, your job was to have looked at those studies.” But Kennedy did look at them. I’m sure that he has looked at the very studies that all of the senators were referencing, he just didn’t take them to defeat his beliefs despite them very clearly disproving his skeptical stance.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician, cited the evidence he asked for, but Kennedy simply cited a different study saying, “There’s a study that came out last week of 47,000 9-year-olds in the Medicaid system in Florida — I think a Louisiana scientist called Mawson — that shows the opposite.” The study claims that it found that, “[v]accinated children were significantly more likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed” with autism.
It’s worth noting that this study was published in a poorly regarded journal where the editor-in-chief has spread vaccine misinformation. The authors are associated with the Chalfont Research Institute: the organization has no website and its mailing address is just someone’s house. The study was also funded by an anti-vax group. This is an actual source that Kennedy uses to support his misguided views – he cited it during an actual confirmation hearing.
The way that a lot of normal science proceeds is that a hypothesis is proposed and then tested. For example, let’s say that a hypothesis claims that there is a causal relationship between A and B. Statistical significance tests are often used (although the methodology is being slowly challenged), and so the hypothesis is accepted if the probability that the relationship is due to pure chance is below a certain threshold.
Because of this, and because so many studies are conducted, and because many studies are underpowered (in that their conclusions are not established with a high degree of confidence), some studies will produce evidence of a causal relationship between two things where there is none.
Starting in the 1950s, this feature of science was exploited by the tobacco industry to produce the appearance that the science on whether smoking caused cancer was unsettled. It also gives ammunition to people who are looking to misinform or believe wildly implausible conclusions. When provided with robust evidence, they can always just point to some underpowered study where their conclusion is supported. But, when one is forming justified beliefs, all of the evidence must be taken into account. In the case of vaccines, Kennedy is latching on to low-quality studies and ignoring the vast amount of evidence that contradicts his belief.
He has no desire to change his views, and contrary to what he claims, he is not open to being proven wrong. If he was open to it, he would have already changed his mind given how utterly and completely settled this question is.
We simply cannot have a secretary in charge of our health who makes such basic mistakes in reasoning and whose mind is so completely compromised by his disposition to conspiratorial thinking, even in the face of mountains of evidence. If we can’t trust him to form an easy opinion about a matter that is unambiguously backed by the evidence, how can we trust him to make tough decisions where the evidence is not so decisive?
Kennedy is right to point out problems with our healthcare system such as access to quality healthcare, America’s eating habits, and conflicts of interest with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. But can we get someone to fill that role who is willing to address those problems but is also able to have the minimally acceptable ability to be receptive to evidence?
It’s a real shame because he makes a lot of great points. For example, there are very real financial conflicts of interest in the FDA that truly affect voting patterns when deciding what drugs and products to approve. Alas, it’s as simple as this: if you cannot be trusted to acknowledge plain scientific truths, then you cannot be in charge of our healthcare system.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.