Americans suspicious of modern medicine and the status quo are watching Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination to secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) with a mixture of glee, astonishment and skepticism.
Last week, Kennedy used his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee to demonstrate how fully his wellness agenda, Make America Healthy Again, and Trumpism had fused – often to the delight of supporters.
“I leaned conservative anyway, but when Kennedy came on – it was the icing on the cake,” said Hilda Labrada Gore, a 63-year-old mother of four, fitness coach and purveyor of wellness advice who attended Kennedy’s hearing – she was all smiles afterward. In business, she goes by Holistic Hilda. She said she does not have health insurance.
“We are looking to pills and prescriptions, programs and physicians for good health, when actually it can be found through much simpler ancestral health ways.”
Culturally a world away from Washington, Amy Fewell spoke from her homestead, Refuge of Liberty. A mother of three expecting a fourth, she lives in rural Virginia, home-schools her children and runs Homesteaders of America.
“Most of our family hasn’t seen a doctor in over a decade, because we just don’t have to – we’re healthy people,” said Fewell. To her, the most concerning thing about the confirmation hearing was Kennedy distancing himself from anti-vaccine views.
“One of the things that I feel like the libertarian Christian moms are concerned about is hearing Robert F Kennedy say, ‘Well, if the science shows that vaccines are safe, then, yes, we should be fine with it.’ Just because the science says it’s OK – I still want the option to say no to it … We just don’t believe that’s God’s design for our life.”
Kennedy has long held support among naturopaths, the supplement industry, homesteaders and the Christian back-to-the-land movement – many of whom distrust not only vaccines but modern medicine.
“This is our shot,” Karen Howard said she kept thinking about Kennedy’s nomination. She is executive director of the Organic and Natural Health Association, a trade group for the “nutraceuticals” and supplement industry. The group endorsed Kennedy in late January.
“No administration has ever publicly supported what we do – ever,” said Howard. She said she “never” envisioned an administration like Trump’s putting up a nominee friendly to her businesses, and that she feels being “neither” Republican nor Democrat “benefits the work I do”.
Labrada Gore, Fewell and Howard illustrate a potent new mix of wellness and conservatism – people who have adopted the alternative lifestyles once associated with the left, politically support the right, and advocate for a mix of the unobjectionable and potentially harmful.
“It used to be seen as the whole hippie, left-leaning movement from the 60s, which is funny, because homesteading doesn’t have anything to do with politics – until it does,” Fewell said.
Howard also recognized that “we definitely are on the fringe on this” in endorsing Kennedy. “We are not mainstream even amongst our own peer organizations.”
Influencers such Labrada Gore push for less screen time, more exercise, and fewer chemicals, dyes and preservatives in the food supply. Other favored causes are implacably resistant to evidence of potential harm – such as unregulated supplements, raw milk and vaccine refusal.
Like a growing minority of Republicans – about 20%, according to Gallup – Labrada Gore now believes vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent.
“They’re more dangerous,” she said, acknowledging this is a “spicy” perspective – the overwhelming majority of Americans still support childhood vaccinations.
Her theory is that vaccines go “directly into your bloodstream” and “giving it an easy path to bypass the body’s defenses”. She then espoused what many researchers regard as a fraught misunderstanding of the danger of measles, a disease rarely encountered now by Americans. Measles was declared eliminated from the US in 2000, but has since made a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy.
“Some diseases like measles – they are kind of natural rites of passage, I would say, for children to develop naturally. It’s like a hurdle, and when they do they are stronger afterward,” said Labrada Gore.
Today, the CDC estimates measles kills between 1-2 people per 1,000 sickened – though mortality varies by country. That is higher than historical rates, which are generally considered an underestimation. By contrast, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the risk of adverse reaction from the measles vaccine at about one in a million. It is widely accepted that measles vaccines have saved millions of lives globally.
According to a large systematic review, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) is not associated with brain swelling, autism spectrum disorders, “cognitive delay, type 1 diabetes, asthma, dermatitis/eczema, hay fever, leukaemia, multiple sclerosis, gait disturbance, and bacterial or viral infections”.
Notably, many of Kennedy’s supporters aren’t fazed by conflicts and suggestions that left Democrats aghast. For example, Kennedy trademarked Maha for use in the supplement industry. Howard said she was “a bit surprised” but that “from a business perspective, it certainly makes sense”.
Orn his suggestions that he might cut Medicaid, Labrada Gore said: “I don’t know many people on Medicaid, so I don’t really have a reference point.”
If Kennedy is confirmed to lead HHS – an agency with a $1.8tn budget and a remit across health health insurance, biomedical research and the investigation and containment of infectious disease outbreaks – it would take place in spite of fevered opposition.
“My perspective is, and I happen to be a Christian in the south … It is my duty to get vaccinated because I should be helping those who can’t help themselves – those with compromised immune systems or who don’t have the resources to get vaccinated,” said Kristin Matthews, a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Her recent report documented bills to limit vaccine access supported by state Republicans.
“You can’t be a good Christian and then want to skip out on all vaccines for no reason – if you have as medical reason I completely support it.”
Public health researchers, clinicians and even his own cousins have worked to stop the nomination. Their sentiments are summed up by a statement by consumer advocate and Public Citizen co-president Rob Weissman: “There is not one senator who believes Robert F Kennedy is qualified to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and no senator should vote for his confirmation.”
The confirmation may also come amid the noted silence of some of Washington’s most powerful groups, such as the American Medical Association and PhRMA. In 2024, pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups spent $293m lobbying Congress – more than any industry by a long shot.
Few Republican doubters remain. Those that do, such as polio survivor and Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, may not do enough to stop Kennedy’s confirmation.
Olga Irwin, a 57-year-old Aids patient and activist from Youngstown, Ohio, also attended Kennedy’s hearing. Irwin, who uses a wheelchair, has lived with HIV for 25 years. Like most people, she has spent little time dwelling on her own demise.
That changed last week, after she attended Kennedy’s confirmation hearing.
She fears the nominee’s history of HIV-denialism and suggestions of cutting Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the low-income that she and 79 million other Americans rely on. Without it, her prescriptions would cost roughly $7,000 per month.
She called her husband after the hearing and said: “‘Sam, I’m gonna fucking die.’ Not because I’m not taking my meds – I’m not going to have access to them. I’m picturing my death.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
