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RFK Jr. Can't Handle the Truth
00:26:59
It only takes a few bad men to ruin scientific progress for everyone. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and read Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: ...
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to Next comes what from Degenerate Art. This is Andrea Pitzer. Each week we'll figure out how we got where we are and how to fight back. Today I want to talk about science and medicine in the second Trump administration.
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B
Senator Cassidy, thank you. I'll try and restore a little calm.
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A
Here watching the wrecking ball that is RFK junior Children and I would say.
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B
Adults health is at risk.
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A
In charge of health and human services in the US Today, the Senate confirms her.
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B
The secretary said in her swearing in that she has, quote, unimpeachable scientific credentials. And the president called her an incredible mother and dedicated public servant.
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A
Is like watching a slasher film. I responded that I could not pre approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence and I had no basis to fire scientific experts. He told me he had already spoken with the White House several times about having me removed. In which the killer just wanders the streets in daylight. Let's bring in NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta, attacking everyone he can so he knows what he's doing while nobody stops him. He's actually undermining the very framework of how we get vaccines covered for the American people, including kids. It's not just RFK, of course. We've all read about how Doge decimated NIH research.
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B
The NIH is responsible for more than 80% of of the world's investment in biomedical research. 80% of the world's investment apparently doing.
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A
Searches for terms like trans.
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B
Trump administration is targeting projects that it determines have any connection to diversity, equity or gender identity. This doesn't make any sense.
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Which led to the disappearance of funding for things like endocrinological research and mouse studies that test the effects of new treatments.
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B
This goes way beyond dei.
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A
This affects everyone and a lot more.
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B
We're talking about research on maternal health outcomes, cervical cancer, child suicide, HIV prevention, stillbirths, and more.
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A
Lately we've seen RFK standing once again in opposition to pediatric experts. What do you think is most at stake from this CDC meeting this week?
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B
Probably the activity with respect to the MMRV vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine.
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A
He is reported to be planning to use a group of children who died to suggest that the COVID vaccines, MRNA vaccines in general are unsafe.
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B
I think the bigger story, though, is going to be that there's a lot of discussion that they may restrict access to the COVID vaccine to only 75 and above. So people age 75 and above.
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A
He regularly says untrue things about vaccine schedules and risks for children and adults alike.
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B
There's no Vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.
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A
It was easy to see a lot of this coming. I wrote in July of 2024, ahead of the election about candidate Trump's abuse of scientific concepts and the pseudo scientific rhetoric adopted by his allies to p their political agenda. But given that RFK promised people like Dr. And Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana that he would be deliberate and moderate.
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C
I'm supportive of vaccines.
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A
In his dealings over vaccines, I just.
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B
Want to follow the science.
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A
What's been made clear is that any acknowledgement of actual science was just lip service.
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B
I'm not going to take away anybody's vaccines.
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A
Cassidy himself called RFK Jr. On the carpet for saying that the COVID vaccine killed more people than Covid itself.
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C
Senator, I just want to make clear.
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B
I did not say we'll check the record. That's a question of fact.
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A
Yet it was Cassidy who cast a key vote to confirm RFK Jr earlier this year.
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B
I've been impressed that, that on many things you are familiar with recent medical.
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A
Data for political benefit to himself rather than medical benefit to his constituents.
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B
Did we fail? Was there something we should have done differently?
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A
The systems we built, it turns out, can be dismantled by just a few bad actors in key positions. And that is what we're facing now.
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C
I've been friends of his for a long time and I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines.
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A
It's now critical to understand the large, larger goal that sits behind the destruction of the federal government's support of science and the scientific method. Across the United States, Kennedy had no chance of winning. So why are some of the wealthiest people in America spending millions to get him on the ballot? Well, because almost all of these pro Kennedy donations are coming from people who've long supported Donald Trump. What's going on? Part of it is sheer grift in terms of budget. The largest federal department in the US Isn't the Department of Defense, it's the Department of Health and Human Services. Vast amounts of money are being allocated through processes that while occasionally may be subject to excessive bureaucracy or some interference, but are generally awarded to those who are positioned to conduct investigations in areas in which they are experts and by people who are working as part of teams capable of doing that research. For example, the recent development of an RSV vaccine was built on decades of research handled by the nih. But any kind of neutral process is anathema to the Trump administration.
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C
Appropriate President Trump, that a president in office should be engaged in so much business activity.
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A
Well, I'm really not where all money and access to it should flow directly from the White House.
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C
My kids are running the business. I'm here. You know what the activity. Where are you from? I'm from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, preferably.
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A
In a way that allows Trump or his allies to somehow get a cut.
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C
The Australians. You're hurting Australia, right? In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. And they want to get along with me. You know, your, your, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I'm going to tell them about you. You set a very bad tone.
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A
Even before Trump's arrival on the scene, the US has a long history of anti expert know nothing movements. There's always been a niche for them in our country because those without a good education and honestly, many people with a good education remain vulnerable to swindlers. According to AARP Older American, $12.5 billion to scams and fraud in 2024, up 25% from 2023. In addition, the powerful have long tended to ignore the powerless, as in so many societies. The most common are imposter scams where criminals call or text pretending to be government officials or companies like Amazon and PayPal. But as much as any of that, the government has often served moneyed interests more than it has its constituents. And one of the reasons for so much rage against conventional Democratic leaders really from Bill Clinton forward, is the sense that they too have played a part in this kind of self dealing politics.
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B
That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more. By hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before. By cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits.
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A
Illegal aliens have the Republicans done it more openly with more contempt for their base.
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C
The people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country.
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A
Absolutely. But the sense of betrayal from traditional Democratic voters is palpable. And now Trump is making that tendency in government much, much worse. How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?
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C
I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less.
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He's tapping into ongoing pre existing resentments. The anti vaccine movement, the fluoride paranoia, the jade helm anxieties that the government might be powerful enough to put everyday people in concentration Camps. Joining me now is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. All of these predate Trump.
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B
Where are the don't tread on me people? We were told for years that we needed to be prepared about an overbearing federal government that would step in over local control and actually put troops on the streets.
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But he aims to capitalize on those resentments by redirecting them.
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B
I mean, where are those people?
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He's trying to convince voters that they're being hoodwinked, that everything is a hoax. It is wildly offensive that you would accuse President Trump of not protecting American interests in our country. And rather than have them realize the degree to which he's robbing them blind, he's turning their rage against anyone who is part of a government system onto the system itself. Senator Bill Cathrey said, effectively, we're denying people vaccines. Do you have full confidence in what RFK Jr. Is doing?
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C
Well, I didn't get to watch the hearings today, but it's not your standard talk. I would say that, and that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what's going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he's different.
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A
But in the end, Trump's fight against science is a fight against there being any objective truth. The truth for Trump should only be whatever Trump says it is.
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C
Smart people don't like me, and we've.
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A
Seen, seen how this plays out in history before, and they don't like what we talk about. History offers many instances in which scientists who had become public figures were targeted in similar ways to the destruction of science in America today. As a Jewish scientist in Germany when the Nazis began to gather power, Albert Einstein was a key target for their culture war agenda.
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B
In January, Nobel Prize mathematician Albert Einstein visited California on a mission to improve German American relations.
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Einstein's breakthrough with relativity was beyond comprehension for most laypeople, which allowed the Nazis to rebrand and dismiss it as Jewish physics. The Nazis held special events to burn his work and targeted him for hanging.
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Ten months later, he was in exile, his property seized by Hitler's new regime.
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He left the country a month before Hitler was appointed Chancellor.
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Germany's loss, America's game.
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Anthony Fauci did not do research that fundamentally revised his field as Einstein Einstein did. But we saw the same attempt to launch a culture war attack against him during the COVID epidemic.
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C
That's why I'm Roger Stone and you're not.
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Fauci was a bureaucrat who did his job for decades under various presidents, having successes and making mistakes.
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C
I have met RFK Jr. On one occasion. I don't think you would call his friends. You might call us acquaintances. I admire his courage and his position on the safety and lack of effectiveness in danger of the COVID 19 vaccination.
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And other vaccinations, but becoming a public face of medical research in America, promoting research that had the potential to save the lives of millions worldwide.
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C
I have read his book the the Real Anthony Fauci. It's a masterpiece. He nails it. His documentary, his companion documentary is the same.
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And as that bureaucrat scientist, he. He was the ideal target for Trump fusing the attack on government. With the anti vaccine movement already underway, President elect Trump was very thoughtful on the issue.
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B
He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety.
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C
Vaccine safety? Yeah.
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B
And scientific integrity.
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A
Trump turned tens of millions against some of the best science ever done by humanity, with the underlying goal being to undermine any authority.
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C
I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.
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A
Scientists have played key political roles in other times and places, sometimes more willingly. In the story of biologist Trofim Lysenko, we see the opposite of the Fauci dynamic, in which mid 20th century Soviet authorities promoted a scientist who discounted genetics with direct praise from Stalin.
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Stalin's agricultural policies were directly informed by the unscientific, some would even say crazy, theories of one man, Trofim Lysenko, a scientist who rose from almost complete obscurity in the 1920s.
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For Lysenko's ideas, rivals were displaced and another leading scientific figure who tried to keep more scientific rigor in their system was sentenced to death. Although he eventually died from malnutrition in.
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Prison, by the 1940s, Lysenko's influence was so great, in fact, that the journalist Sam Kean asserted that he probably killed more human beings than any individual scientist in history.
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The state of science was so politicized in that setting that the geneticists and the Lysenko faction attacked each other and fell into this polarized dynamic that likely seemed to the public like just so much squabbling among eggheads.
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B
Inspired by Lysenko's theories, Stalin forced farmers in the Colchosi to plant seeds very close together, in the belief that plants from the same class never competed with each other.
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A
That fight made it easier for the party, or Stalin as leader, to step in and settle matters himself, which had nothing to do with the scientific method at all. And once Stalin had picked his champion, any opposition at home or abroad to the ideas that Lysenko promoted could be taken as a sign of an attack on Stalin and the state itself.
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C
What do you think Pam Bondi thinks she's gonna go after hate speech? Is that. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech, should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly and say you have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe.
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A
Abc, While we have already seen the spurious promotion of things like ivermectin, vitamin A and even bleach, well, today the governor of Maryland had to warn citizens to not ingest or inject disinfectants into their bodies. Here in the US Trump has no pet Lysenko for now. No scientist with a high enough profile to be the face of the administration's takeover of science itself.
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C
I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside.
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A
But in my opinion, this is where RFK Jr comes in. He's already a celebrity, already has a little environmental activism in his past. He's part of a legendary American political family and a kind of guardian angel to anti vaxxers.
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B
Mr. Kennedy, you have compared the CDC's work to Nazi death camps. You've compared it to sexual abusers in the Catholic Church.
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As the head of hhs, he speaks in quasi scientific gibberish.
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B
Folks know I'm a physician. As it turns out, I am a hepatologist, which is a liver specialist, and have published papers on liver disease and have seen people die from hepatitis.
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A
All these different facets of his past have allowed him to ascend to a kind of quack scientist status that allows him to play the role of both Lysenko and Stalin in his ability to overturn medical research and medical practice in the US Today.
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B
One thing that reportedly is going to be discussed at the upcoming ACIP meeting is ending the recommendation for the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine.
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A
Trump doesn't have the curiosity or the patience to interfere with HHS on a daily basis. But just as Stephen Miller has been given free reign over immigration matters.
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For those who say, why should a child be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease when they're at birth? The child passes through the birth canal and is exposed to the same secretions as one would otherwise. And that passage through the birth canal makes that child vulnerable to the virus being transmitted, not just hepatitis B. It can be HIV. It can be other things.
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RFK Jr. Is now dismantling much of American science and healthcare in the decade.
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Following approval of a birth dose of hepatitis B, newborn infection of hepatitis b reduced by 68%. That's in the decade. So that's up to 2001 now. Fewer than 20 babies per year get hepatitis B from their mother. That is an accomplishment to make America healthy again. And we should stand up and salute the people that made that decision.
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What Trump is aiming for is a dictatorship. And any dictator wants the full weight of accountability in the subjugated country to run in only one direction, toward the leader.
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I alone can fix it.
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A
The actual practice of science, with its goals of reproducibility, independence and its underlying principles, of course has had its own failures. And scientists have often been the ones to publicize those course corrections. But a government run, peer reviewed collaborative grant process holds the potential to neutralize the most political forms of abuse. It creates a long term accountability to improvements in medical care in the lifespans of America, in the discovery for new medical cures. That accountability is to Americans as a whole. But the goal of the dictator is simply to garner more power and hold it more completely.
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C
I've raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can't use for myself. But I'm not 100% sure because I don't know, I think I'm not allowed to run again. I'm not sure am I allowed to run again.
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A
So we see not just the trashing of a traditional bureaucrat like Anthony Fauci, but also the destruction of the goals of the medical scientific enterprise itself. As the New York Times reported this week, future oriented cancer research is being destroyed. In the mid-1970s, America's five year cancer survival rate sat at 49%. Today it's 68%. But now an extraordinarily successful scientific research system, one that took decades to build and has saved millions of lives and has generated billions of dollars profits for American companies and investors. Current standards of care are being decimated in ways that will lead to many deaths. That system is being dismantled before our eyes. But the ability to recommend treatments and allocate money to those who are allied to Trump and RFK Jr. Is under their sway. Vote for me, I'll get rid of cancer research. Vote for me, I'm for more cancer. I mean, not what he ran on. With databases and historical statistics being obliterated left and right. We run the risk of the state of public health now being whatever they say it is. The war on science is a war on facts, on any outside authority, and on the regulatory state, all of which demand Accountability to something outside the leader and his circle. The process is a classic one. Discredit other leaders and dismantle institutions until they're safely under your control. The first Trump administration and its resistance to even the successful vaccine developed when he was president had a devastating effect on the public. Not only did Trump normalize the rejection of science and demand his followers disregard the facts before their eyes, his failure of leadership led to the deaths of so many and sparked a national desensitization to death and suffering.
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B
We don't see any of these drug boats coming into our country. They've completely stopped. And I said, I know why I would stop, too. Hell, I wouldn't go fishing right now in that area of the world.
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A
Biggest culprit in all this is Trump, because he set up the dynamic that has dominated since. And when Biden came in on the heels of the January 6th coup attempt, his team was facing a difficult situation in the country, with Trump supporters overwhelmingly not accepting the facts on the ground of the election or the COVID epidemic or the numbers of deaths that had just happened. Rather than take up that fight at a vulnerable moment, which, to be fair, would not have been easy, the Biden administration proceeded as if everything had returned to normal. The problem was, everything hadn't returned to normal. It was a mistake to pretend the regulatory state and the public health system hadn't been deeply damaged during the first Trump administration. It was a mistake to just try to proceed as if the January 6 coup participants could be prosecuted and everything else would revert to normal. And I believe all those deaths from COVID and the public disregard for them set the stage for the deeper desensitization of the country's response today to everything from abuse of immigrants to the harm being done to those who live on the streets. And it's a mistake now to do, as Senator John Fetterman recently called upon Democrats to do, to not refer to Trump as an autocrat.
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B
Yeah, no, that's the thing. If you actually compare it to an actual autocrat, that is not just that. You just don't ever, ever compare anyone to Hitler and those kinds of extreme things.
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A
Given that Trump's second administration is the result of a popular. Fetterman would prefer that we proceed as if we are in a normal political process and conduct the usual debates over everyday issues.
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B
And I think we can't just be, well, Trump is always wrong. Or. Or that we're going to set the country on fire. Or.
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A
But we can't pretend everything is normal when it's not. I would say it's crucial not to let name calling and Hitler references be the only thing that's going on. Those who oppose the current regime need to offer concrete policies bundled under an overarching vision, a framework focused on the opposite of this kind of self dealing, self important anti scientific crusade that Trump has mounted. And we see it in every direction, not just science. CNBC reported Monday that the President is advocating for companies to stop reporting earnings on a quarterly basis.
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B
Jim, the securities Exchange act of 34 might have something to say about there.
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A
Are two likely advantages to this the toll on the economy of the kidnapping and deportation of migrant workers combined with the coming wallop. Trump's tariffs will hit many U S companies hard. And by the way, I don't know.
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B
That it matters, Carl, that there's a law or whatever it might be. Congress wants to pass a new law. They're welcome. Yeah, but how many things have we had happen? And maybe it could be under emergency power.
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A
Skipping third quarter reporting would be very convenient for the administration, but on a larger scale, this too is more of the assault on facts and math and reality that is part and parcel of the attack on science. Trump wants to be the only authority who has the final word on any matter. We see it on a weekly basis in Science as well. With the President over the weekend claiming the right to assassinate suspected drug dealers in international waters because, as he falsely declared over the weekend, somehow 300 million.
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C
People died last year from drugs.
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A
It might not surprise you to know the vast majority of Americans did not actually die last year from illicit drug use. The CDC has actually developed a process that it uses to count those deaths. It's a process that has been improved greatly recently. But for Trump, the existence of real numbers and a way to count them can only be seen as a threat. I always try to finish these episodes with concrete things you can do today about whatever program I focused on on that day. But that isn't at all to discourage you from looking around and seeing what needs might be at hand that I haven't mentioned. But I don't want to leave you with nothing. So one key thing you can do in the moment is triage on the ground. There's growing confusion over Covid vaccines this morning after last week's move by RFK Jr. CDC to scale back vaccine eligibility. Find out if you live in a state in which there are now restrictions for people to get their Covid shots. See what requirements currently are for getting them. In a number of cases, people now need prescriptions from their doctor. Reach out to community centers, libraries, churches and retirement communities near you. These are the kinds of places that previously hosted Covid clinics in the past, but they may not be able to now. Figure out if there's a way to still host informational sessions on site while helping make sure people can get the paperwork they need in order. You can help communicate with their medical team or transport people off site for shots. The extra barriers to access are the ones that you can step in to help people get over. Support scientific enterprise in a larger way. Bring scientists, medical researchers, professors, healthcare workers and others to speak at your kids school about the effectiveness of vaccines and the promise of research as preventive testing comes under greater attack. And it will help set up screenings or screening information talks on the ground near you by talking to your city council or state representative. Work to guarantee the independence of all kinds of research in the sciences as well as the humanities at your state universities and public schools near you as healthcare premiums increase. For those who are dependent on aca, Work to help community groups bridge the gaps in coverage, erase medical debt and educate people about what's happening and why. Health care is a fundamental issue, a kitchen table issue, and it's one that can unite us as voters and as Americans. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next Comes what? Please share this with anyone who's looking for ways to help each other survive this mess. To support this podcast, Please subscribe@Andreapitzer.com and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening and thank you for watching. If you do have the means, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber and you can do that@Andreapitzer.com and just go to the newsletter link which is in the first paragraph of the home page and you can sign up from there.