Summary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has a history of extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories about vaccines.

In previously unreported comments at autism conferences, Kennedy likened vaccination programs to Catholic Church abuse scandals and Nazi death camps and argued for jailing vaccine scientists.

He has falsely claimed vaccines cause autism and accused public health agencies like the CDC of corruption and hiding vaccine dangers.

Critics fear his leadership could dismantle vaccine safety efforts, decrease public trust, and disrupt public health policy.

  • Cargon
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    1 day ago

    He looks like someone that would be an expert on child abuse

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Considering he decided to take his kids with him when he went to saw that whale’s head off and they had to ride back in the car with the whale’s head on top wearing tarps but still getting covered in “whale juice,” and his daughter just told that story casually in an interview a few years ago, I’m guessing he’s got quite a bit of experience in abusing children.

      Maybe not the way the Catholic Church does, but…

  • Breve@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    If vaccination is just as bad for children as the Catholic church then he’s going to ban both of them, right? 🙄

  • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Fuck the vaccines cause autism argument. Like even if it were true. I’m autistic. You’re telling me you’d rather your child die than be like me? Speaks volumes to how much hate you have both for people like me and your own child.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Also (without wanting to belittle your condition), if the choice is between autism and life in an iron lung, I’d take autism.

    • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Thimerosal was already removed from most childhood vaccines in the U.S. and Europe more than a decade ago.

      I don’t get what RFK is trying to change.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        19 hours ago

        His cabinet is very much going to be operating on a vibes basis, and his base will judge him in a similar basis as well. There’s no rational thought going on.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      The CDC has been involved in genetically sequencing strains of the virus and working on vaccine development, in exactly the kind of preparedness we need for a very deadly virus that could go pandemic at any time. RFK has promised to end vaccination programs and force vaccines off the market, and he’s about to be put in charge of the CDC. The whole world will be worse prepared for a bird flu pandemic thanks to his wacky antivax views, and many, many people will die in the USA and elsewhere as a result. This is a virus that by some measures has a fatality rate of 51%, whereas COVID was probably somewhere between 1% and 2%.

      • Zement@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        It’s sad. But every single Trump voter who is also anti-vax deserves to actually experience the consequences of their actions.

      • AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        I don’t fully understand why the deaths of tens of millions or more helps corporations maintain cheap labor?

        What’s the conservative benefit here? Simply suffering?

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          19 hours ago

          I believe they’ve jumped the shark.

          The rhetoric used to be for the goals you mentioned. But now I think many, especially in the trump wh actually believe what they are peddling

        • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yes. They enjoy making people suffer. Nothing gives them more satisfaction than making people suffer and then being worshipped for it by those same people.

        • diffusive@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Votes. People vote with emotions and fear is one of the most powerful emotion.

          This is for giving the various people scared by a world where there are (and will be) more and more deadly diseases (due to intensive farming and whatnots) a simple, reassuring and deadly wrong answer: it’s all a big conspiracy theory for big pharma to make money and for the government to control your brain and Bill Gates to steal your top candy crush score.

          This is the same technique at work with economy btw: economy is scary and complex…here a simple answer “Trump will fix it because he is rich so he understands money”

          Democrats talk to rationality (and sometimes rationality crosses emotions e.g. with abortions rights), Republicans talk to emotions, where facts, interests, justice doesn’t matter

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Countries with more efficient governments lose fewer lives than countries with less efficient governments. But also more open countries lose more lives than more closed countries. And authoritarian countries, other things equal, lose fewer lives.

          This means that structures that immobilize small power, but not big power, and have better infrastructure for big power, are encouraged.

          Thus corporations with oligarchic ambitions are, yes, interested in big pandemics.

          A bit like Hanseatic cities and other such unions became much stronger after European populations shrinking from plague.

          Except then it would also lead to servitude becoming softer and less normal, because of shortage of hands. Our current world does not have that shortage. No pandemic will bring it. Maybe a nuclear war and planetary hunger.

          This is a level higher. Modern nation states are being dismantled slowly. We will have that cyberpunk dystopia, but as always, it will be different from what’s been predicted. There will be genocide, and there will be nationalism, and there will be death squadrons, and there will be militant marxist groups, and there will be mafia organizations.

          I mean, they all already exist, it’s just that 90s worldview was a rare period of truthful representation of reality in public perception, where we felt how huge the world is. Now it’s glossy bullshit again.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Don’t know much about it, can is spread to mosquitoes? (I’m still in the unknowing bubble assuming it is transferred via blood). If you tell me it can be airborne I wouldn’t have known. (Insert bird pun here)

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    People like these will end up causing thousands of deathsand untold suffering

    At the inevitable end, when people finally realize what normal people already have known for a century (that none of these policies work) I expect them all to be punished appropriately. None of this “one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic” bullshit, if multiple homicides gets you life, what should thousands get you?

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      We politely clap for the paintings of a former president who lied to get us into a war and got thousands more Americans killed. He did this for political and financial gain, not because the US needed to go to war. So fraud on a massive scale with thousands of murders.

      Make sure to clap.

  • nman90@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Even if it happened to be true, obviously it’s not, RFK isn’t attacking the church over their rampant abuse. Definitely speaks volumes.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Wait, so Christians voted not only for a president who clearly isn’t Christian, but also a man from a Catholic family who disowned the church and speaks against them? Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly fine with everyone bashing the Catholic Church until they find ways to root out all the evil within, but how did Christians vote for him when they were claiming Trump (the man who stands against all of Jesus’s teachings) was the Christian choice.

      Maybe I’m wrong and he didn’t abandon the Catholic Church though, just calls them evil while joining them for mass? Idk

      • Hazor@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Decades of propaganda have convinced Christians that Republican=Christian, and the last decade of propaganda have convinced them that Trump is a good Christian man anointed by God and all the bad stuff they might hear about him is just Democrat lies. Many, if not most, honestly don’t know the half of Trump’s evils, let alone believe them.

      • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        A surprising, completely unexpected flash of lucidity from him.
        I guess the little guys up there do get it right sometimes 🪱

          • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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            2 days ago

            From RFK Jr, for criticizing the church, even if it’s just in passing.
            I did not expect that from him at all.

              • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                It’s hard to say really.
                I want to say “he isn’t one anymore” since publicly saying something bad about the church seems to be a very big no-no, specially for these cult-like public figures, but who knows.
                I’d even say he might not believe but might also not switch just because he’s been a believer for so long it’s hard to change.

  • Hazor@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Can you imagine what it’d be like if mandatory childhood vaccines are eliminated? Can you imagine what a resurgence of measles or even polio would be like?!

    No, you probably can’t, because vaccines made them non-issues before most of us were even born. And now they might come back because some dullard thinks he knows better than actual doctors and scientists. Dunning and Kruger must be crying themselves to sleep these days.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    promote raw milk (likely infested with H5) to people at the same time as demonizing vaccines. surely that can’t go wrong.

    • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      When I was a kid, my grandma would send me to a nearby farm to get raw milk. It was then brought to a boil at home, the top skimmed, for making pastries, and then consumed. It was way better tasting than store bought, but it was boiled.

      • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I grew up with boiled raw milk too. But there is no control over who does what with it or whether if they boil it enough (some people won’t boil too much because boiling kills the taste and benefits according to them). Between people sticking up other people’s poo up their buttholes and live H5 virus detected in raw milk (180 out of 275 positive for fragments, 39 positive for live), I dont think it is a good time to promote raw milk.

          • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            I am against the DIY version of this and it ties to people attempting to try anything they see on social media without required knowledge because someone says it will solve all their problems.

            • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              Ah ok. I see what you mean. Cause the science behind it is solid (pun intended). But I agree that people ordering the stuff off of a website and “applying” it in their bathtubs is just weird and wrong.

  • Potatisen@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I just imagine a worm that caved out a little den with a bunch of tunnels running throughout the brain. Wormo got a couch and two sticks with a big red button in between that he’s using to control RFK. When he pushes the button it sends a shock through RFKs brain and he says something, like a tick. Every now and then something in another room fucks up so Wormo has to leave the sticks and jiggle-wiggle over to fix the issue and leave RFK unattended.

    🪱