MAHA Forever

Summary

Podcast Title: The Dream
Episode: MAHA Forever
Release Date: February 17, 2025
Host: Jane Marie
Guest: Anna Merlyn, Senior Reporter at Mother Jones

---

Introduction

In this episode of The Dream, hosted by Jane Marie, the discussion centers around the recent confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Guest Anna Merlyn, a seasoned reporter from Mother Jones, provides an in-depth analysis of the implications of Kennedy’s appointment, particularly focusing on his stance on vaccines and public health policies.

---

RFK Jr.'s Confirmation and Background

Jane Marie opens the conversation by expressing skepticism about the government's current state, highlighting the appointment of "highly unqualified people" like RFK Jr. to significant positions. Anna Merlyn confirms, stating, "RFK was confirmed on Thursday to be the head of HHS. It’s been pretty obvious since he advanced through the first Senate subcommittee that that was going to happen" (00:55).

Notable Quote:
"RFK was confirmed on Thursday to be the head of HHS. It’s been pretty obvious since he advanced through the first Senate subcommittee that that was going to happen."
— Anna Merlyn (00:55)

Merlyn elaborates on the confirmation process, noting that Senator Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy’s nomination, citing his status as a polio survivor and disagreement with Kennedy’s views on vaccines.

---

RFK Jr.'s Stance on Vaccines and Public Health

The core of the discussion revolves around RFK Jr.'s long-standing anti-vaccine stance and his influence on public health policy. Jane Marie mentions their previous conversation from five years ago on wellness, where Kennedy discussed conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism—a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.

Notable Quote:
"He really wants it to be true. For some reason, he loves it. And he is now our health secretary."
— Jane Marie (01:20)

Merlyn provides a detailed background on Kennedy's involvement with anti-vaccine movements, including his leadership of the Children's Health Defense and his publication of a now-retracted article titled "Deadly Immunity."

Notable Quote:
"His entry into the anti-vax world was he claimed that a mother came to him being like, please investigate the environmental and health harms of vaccines."
— Anna Merlyn (08:18)

---

Impact on Public Health Policies

The conversation shifts to the potential ramifications of Kennedy’s leadership on public health initiatives. Merlyn highlights concerns about redirecting federal funding towards disproven vaccine theories and promoting pseudoscientific treatments.

Notable Quote:
"The fact that no amount of evidence steers them from this course means that we end up arguing about settled science over and over rather than being able to move on to anything else."
— Anna Merlyn (31:10)

Topics discussed include the possible rollback of vaccine campaigns, deregulation of food safety standards, and the promotion of unverified health treatments. Merlyn emphasizes the danger of undermining established public health measures, such as the polio vaccine, and the broader implications for national and global health.

---

Financial Stakes and Motivations

Jane probes into Kennedy’s financial interests within the anti-vaccine movement, suggesting potential conflicts of interest. Merlyn explains Kennedy’s financial ties, including substantial referral fees from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.

Notable Quote:
"According to Elizabeth Warren's office, Kennedy has made nearly $2.5 million in referral fees from a law firm called Wisner Baum."
— Anna Merlyn (20:30)

Merlyn also discusses the trademarking of "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) and its intended use for products like vitamins and essential oils, hinting at possible commercialization of anti-vaccine products.

---

Public and Political Reactions

The episode delves into the public’s and political figures’ responses to Kennedy’s appointment. There is significant backlash from his own family and public health experts who view his appointment as a threat to effective public health strategies.

Notable Quote:
"His family keeps being like, we are not uniformly behind this, but nonetheless, he has the name."
— Anna Merlyn (24:44)

Merlyn underscores the disconnect between Kennedy’s views and mainstream scientific consensus, highlighting the risk of eroding trust in public health institutions like the CDC and FDA.

---

Future Implications for HHS and National Health

Looking ahead, Merlyn expresses grave concerns about the direction HHS might take under Kennedy’s leadership. Potential implications include:

• Deregulation of Health Standards: Possible relaxation of safety protocols for vaccines and other medical products.
• Shift in Funding Priorities: Redirecting funds from evidence-based research to unfounded theories.
• Impact on Global Health Initiatives: Risk of reducing aid and support for international health programs, such as PEPFAR, which have been crucial in combating AIDS globally.

Notable Quote:
"It has the potential to be the most consequential for people on a day-to-day level. It has the potential to be the most impactful on people's lives."
— Anna Merlyn (40:22)

Merlyn warns that such changes could lead to a resurgence of preventable diseases and undermine decades of progress in public health.

---

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the potential dangers of Kennedy’s appointment, emphasizing the necessity for vigilance and advocacy in protecting public health standards. Anna Merlyn underscores the critical role of scientific integrity in maintaining effective health policies and the risks posed by individuals who deny established medical facts.

Notable Quote:
"This is a catastrophe. It really can't be overstated."
— Anna Merlyn (38:34)

Jane Marie and Anna Merlyn leave listeners with a sense of urgency regarding the importance of safeguarding public health against policies that deny scientific evidence.

---

Key Takeaways

• RFK Jr.'s Appointment: RFK Jr.'s confirmation as HHS secretary raises significant concerns due to his anti-vaccine stance and promotion of unfounded health conspiracy theories.

• Public Health Risks: Potential deregulation and redirection of funds could undermine vaccine programs and public health initiatives, risking the resurgence of preventable diseases.

• Conflict of Interest: Kennedy's financial ties to anti-pharmaceutical lawsuits present a conflict of interest in his role overseeing public health.

• Erosion of Trust: Undermining established institutions like the CDC and FDA could erode public trust in science and effective health policies.

• Global Implications: Reduced support for international health programs could have dire consequences for global disease prevention and health stability.

---

Disclaimer: This summary is based on the transcript provided and aims to capture the essence of the podcast episode "MAHA Forever" from The Dream by Little Everywhere. For a comprehensive understanding, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode.

Transcript

[Paige]

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[Jane Marie]

I'm Jane Marie, and this is the dream. So how's everybody feeling about the government today? Notice anything awry, like, I don't know, a bunch of highly unqualified people being hired to run this place into the ground? We spoke with today's guest five years ago during our season on wellness.

[Anna Merlyn]

My name is Anna Merlyn, and I'm a senior reporter at Mother Jones.

[Jane Marie]

Don't worry, you don't need to go hunting for the episode. We're going to replay it right here tomorrow. But she came on to talk about conspiracy theories in wellness, including a big one that vaccines somehow cause autism. They don't, but people think they do. But there's this guy, he's, like, really famous, and he, even though that's not true, he really wants it to be true. For some reason, he loves it. And he is now our health secretary. RFK Jr. The picture of health. I mean, who better than anti vaxxer and weird creepazoid RFK Jr to, you know, be in charge of. Literally in charge of our bodies? It's gonna be exciting, guys. A lot of. Lot of. A lot of stuff's gonna. You know what? I'm already vaccinated, though, so I'm not as scared as, like, I don't know, all the new babies should be. So. Okay, so we're here to talk about RFK Jr and all this stuff. So yesterday.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Were. Were you surprised or not surprised? Not surprised at all that he got confirmed?

[Anna Merlyn]

I was not. No.

[Jane Marie]

As the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yep. RFK was confirmed on Thursday to be the head of hhs. It's been pretty obvious since he advanced through the first Senate subcommittee that that was going to happen. There was, I believe, One Republican, Mitch McConnell, voted against his nomination.

[Jane Marie]

Oh, and Trump already talked about that.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Jane Marie]

And said that he was out of his mind.

[Anna Merlyn]

Mitch McConnell is a polio survivor.

[Jane Marie]

Yep. And that Trump doesn't care about that. That's not important.

[Anna Merlyn]

Sure.

[Jane Marie]

He said he wasn't even voting against rfk. He was voting Against Trump. He said he's voting against me. Cause I said that he's lost his mind. Yeah, Polio survivor.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, it was tough too because Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was one of the other kind of like holdouts because he's a physician and he was very disturbed by Kennedy's decades long commentary on vaccines and made a big deal out of trying to get Kennedy to admit that vaccines do not cause autism, which Kennedy wouldn't do. Really dragged it out and then voted for him anyway.

[Jane Marie]

Is Bill Cassidy a Republican?

[Anna Merlyn]

He's a Republican, but he's a physician. Like he knows better and voted for him anyway and said we're going to be in close contact. And he essentially said, well he promised me that he's going to follow evidence based reasoning in his approach to hhs. So I mean, yeah, ultimately it was pretty clear that as with all of the other nominees except I guess Matt Gaetz, it was just gonna get sped through because Trump sees Republicans voting against him as a commentary on them, as a personal Jack. Yeah, totally.

[Jane Marie]

So yeah, when we talk about nominees, I've noticed especially in this first month of Trump's presidency, there's one nominee for everything. It doesn't feel like there's actually been any sort of vetting process for anything. It feels like he's just taking his chess pieces and being like, and this one will go there and that one will go there and that one will go there. And is that new? I don't know enough about this to understand like if there's like a backup plan or you know, like a second.

[Anna Merlyn]

I don't know either because I don't know that the Biden administration really did it particularly differently.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Anna Merlyn]

But I think obviously the difference is that a lot of these people are really, really unqualified by like just objective measures for the jobs they're being asked to hold. Like, Kennedy is an attorney, he doesn't have any medical or scientific training and in fact has made really outrageous statements about the agencies that he's now going to be above. So it's pretty, it's pretty wild.

[Jane Marie]

Why don't we know how scary this is? Like, how is this getting buried? I feel like I've been paying attention and You've been paying attention.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah. I was talking to another journalist who's covered Kennedy for a long time. Cuz at this point I've written about the anti vaccine movement for over a decade. I think if I think about it, which I prefer not to, but and certainly have written about him about as long as I've written about that. And she and I were both kind of agreeing that I don't know if people are fully kind of aware of how inflammatory and outrageous a lot of things he said have been and how long his track record is. As with a lot of Trump nominees and Trump himself, It's just this deluge of stuff, and I don't think people can keep track.

[Jane Marie]

And also, by design, I'd.

[Anna Merlyn]

By design, totally, absolutely flooding the zone. But also, I think that it's hard for people because, okay, say you know a lot about him as I do. What does it do except make you feel bad? And I actually have an argument for that. But I think for a lot of people, it just makes them feel bad. It makes them feel panicky. And so folks are kind of. A little bit disengaged. Yeah, a little bit disengaged. Also, I think that Mr. Kennedy has done a really good job during the confirmation hearings and while he was running for president, trying to soften some of his statements in some places, especially during the confirmation hearings. But his track record really speaks for itself.

[Jane Marie]

So let's go there.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

Do you think he was born a conspiracy theorist? That's a good question. A toddler with your uncle having died in the way that he did, and his dad and then your dad, and then there's all these questions around it and, like, questioning authority and stuff. Like, is that just part of his personality from the jump? I mean, we are not being armed chair psychologists.

[Anna Merlyn]

No, I don't know. I mean, it hasn't taken any of the other Kennedys in that direction. It's a pretty big family. But certainly, you know, he has talked a lot about sort of conspiracy theories around, especially his uncle JFK's assassination, and has suggested that he thinks the CIA was involved. I believe he's also said that about his dad assassination. Yeah. But, yeah, I think he's alone in the sort of vast, forking, very dramatic Kennedy family and holding those views. So it's a mystery. It's a mystery where he got there.

[Jane Marie]

I just think about him as a toddler. Like, what happened? What do you do to a kid to make them this crazy?

[Anna Merlyn]

But okay, he actually started his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, which is kind of crazy. That didn't last very long. Then he became part of two nonprofits that were environmentally focused. One was Riverkeeper that he was at for a long time, and the other was the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'll point out that, like, when he was running for president, there was an open letter from A group of people who had worked with him in environmental spaces asking him to drop out. So, like, and then starting in 2005, he started engaging in anti vaccine conspiracy stuff. He published this now really infamous article that ran in Slate and Rolling Stone at the same time called Deadly Immunity. Slate ultimately retracted it. Rolling Stone, I don't think ever actually did formally retract it, but tons and tons of corrections later, the article was taken down.

[Jane Marie]

It was an op ed about vaccines.

[Anna Merlyn]

No, it was a. It purported to be an investigative article.

[Jane Marie]

Written by him.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, written by him. A lawyer. Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Who has nothing to do with health care.

[Anna Merlyn]

Essentially. His entry into the anti vax world was he claimed that a mother came to him being like, please investigate the environmental and health harms of vaccines. Like, please investigate what they're doing to our children. So this was in the period of time when there was still a belief, which we now have thoroughly debunked, that vaccines might be linked to autism. Right. That is not true. But during that period of time, that's when he got involved in.

[Jane Marie]

Was that mother Jenny McCarthy?

[Anna Merlyn]

She was part of it.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, I know.

[Anna Merlyn]

So, yeah. Then he eventually became part of an organization that was originally called World Mercury Project and then was called Children's Health Defense. And he is the CEO of. Or was the. Sorry, was the chairman of the board of that. And then went on leave during his presidential campaign and now claims to not be part of it.

[Jane Marie]

So Children's Health Defense. I'm on their mailing list.

[Anna Merlyn]

Sure.

[Jane Marie]

Which I feel. I know, but I feel embarrassed about it. I mean, it is great, but it's also, like. I don't know.

[Anna Merlyn]

Oh, it's very interesting.

[Jane Marie]

I don't want to add to his popularity by signing up for this thing, but it is very interesting.

[Anna Merlyn]

I love a mailing list.

[Jane Marie]

There's daily newsletters about, like, how's your kid gonna die today?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah. I mean, also just the fact that they're so excited about Kennedy, like, today, they're running a big sale on all of his books. They send out a fundraising email and an encouragement to buy the onesies that Bernie Sanders was mad about during the confirmation hearings.

[Jane Marie]

Which ones?

[Anna Merlyn]

It's like, I forget what the onesies say, but there's something about, like, the baby being unvaccinated and Bernie Sanders, like, put up a big image of them during the confirmation hearings and was like, do you stand by these onesies? Which is just objectively a very funny thing to say.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Senator]

You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the originator right now, as I understand it, on their website they are selling what's called onesies. These are little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled Unfaxed Unafraid, Next one. And they're sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way. Next one is no vax. No problem. Now you're coming before this committee and you say you are pro vaccine. Just want to ask some questions. And yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for 26 bucks, which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines.

[Jane Marie]

And then the mercury thing, he said there was a study of some sort where children were given tuna fish and then immediately their blood was drawn and they had elevated levels of mercury. And Joe Rogan was like, whoa, really? What if we could make money just doing that?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, that would be great. That sounds so fun. That sounds so much easier. I love too that Joe Rogan's fact checking always consists of just asking his producer to Google things. And then Jamie, the producer just clearly reads whatever the first thing is that comes up and is like, well, looks like it's just.

[Jane Marie]

It's fantastic, horrible and fun.

[Anna Merlyn]

No, it's great. I think it's so great. I think you guys should do that. So what Kennedy is mad about with the mercury is thimerosal, which is a preservative that is mercury based. Not the kind of mercury that is dangerous to human beings or is that is found in fish. Different kind that he always conflates the two. So thimerosal was a preservative that was used in some vaccines and was taken out of pretty much all of them by 2001. Has also never been linked to any harm in human health.

[Jane Marie]

Got it.

[Anna Merlyn]

It's a preservative nonetheless.

[Jane Marie]

For vaccines.

[Anna Merlyn]

For vaccines.

[Jane Marie]

And now lately he's been like, well, let's talk about mercury more generally.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, so he's talking about, when he talks about tuna fish sandwiches, he's talking about methylmercury. That's what is in like fish. What's in thimerosal is ethylmercury. And he's always like, well, you know, there's no safe kind of mercury. But that's not actually true. And in any case, thimerosal isn't used in anything anymore except I think some multi dose vials of flu vaccine. Like it's been taken out of pretty much everything out of an abundance of caution and also because he's so annoying because the CDC does not want people not getting their kids vaccinated because they're afraid of a preservative.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Anna Merlyn]

So the thing about World Mercury Project was that it was devoted to trying to prove the harms of mercury, you know, and a bunch of things including vaccines. It was obviously mainly focused on vaccines and children's health Defense then kind of took on a different angle, which has been echoed by the wider anti vax movement, which is going away from making like specific scientific claims because those can be debunked to making more of a civil rights sort of freedom of choice argument around vaccines, which works incredibly well on Americans especially. We're very like susceptible to the idea that vaccines just should be a choice and nothing should be forced upon you. Which is of course like true. That's true.

[Jane Marie]

But my body, my choice is also not part of the.

[Anna Merlyn]

I mean, this is the argument we get into when for instance, you want kids to be vaccinated against measles before they go to school because measles is so incredibly contagious and most people need to be vaccinated against it to keep it from spreading. So this is the fertile space in which he found himself. And I would say that there have been a couple points where his career really takes off. One is after Deadly Immunity, the article that he published in Slate and Rolling Stone and the sort of hysteria that went on around this now debunked link between vaccines and autism until the paper claiming that vaccines could cause autism was retracted. And the doctor who heavily promoted it, Andrew Wakefield, ultimately lost his medical license in the UK and then moved here, had been married for a long time, left his wife, took up with Elle McPherson.

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What?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah. Who then I believe dumped him. I want to say good for her.

[Jane Marie]

You know what shocks me about that is she's obviously been exposed to the world. You know, it's not like she's a gorgeous supermodel that's never been around smart people all over the world. And then you're going to meet Andrew Wakefield and be like, you know what, this ding dong is real charming. I really.

[Anna Merlyn]

You could say the same about Cheryl Hines, who's married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She is a lovely, talented, you know, seemingly very, very intelligent, well regarded actor and she's been married to him since 2012. You know, I mean, he was well underway in his anti vaccine career when they got together.

[Jane Marie]

So his philandering career, I don't know about that.

[Anna Merlyn]

I. So the only.

[Jane Marie]

Well, I'm saying the diary, sure, yeah.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, the philandering was known. I obviously do not know if he has ever philandered on Cheryl Hines. Apart from the much publicized sexting situation that happened during the campaign between RFK and reporter Olivia Newsy.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Anna Merlyn]

Which got a lot of press and got Olivia Newsy a lot of really harsh invective against her. Not so much against Kennedy.

[Jane Marie]

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[Jane Marie]

So he's doing this Mercury campaign. Do we know any of his motives up until this point?

[Anna Merlyn]

So he's claimed a couple things and I should in like Fairness and thoroughness. I should talk about them. One is that he claims not to be anti vaccine. He claims that he only wants safe vaccines.

[Jane Marie]

He's said that since the beginning.

[Anna Merlyn]

He's said that since the beginning pretty much. But he will also argue that there is pretty much no safe vaccine on the schedule because. Because they are linked to all kinds of things that he will claim at different times and in different forums. But essentially. So when I saw him speak@autism1 in 2019, which is an anti vaccine conference for parents, he essentially was making an argument that every child could be considered injured in some way by either vaccines or environmental exposures of some kind. Like every child, not just children with autism, every child. So this was a sort of a claim that between things like glyphosate, which is a pesticide, that the anti vaccine movement is especially kind of intense about other environmental exposures, that every child had some kind of injury that they needed to heal from. And before COVID that was really the point towards which the anti vaccine movement was moving was the kind of argument of kind of an all encompassing theory of sickness for everybody and vaccine injury and environmental injury for everybody. And then Covid change their direction as.

[Jane Marie]

Part of the concern about every child being injured by one of these things and they have something they need to heal from. Are they doing anything to heal people from the supposed injuries being inflicted upon every child?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a common criticism of the sort of anti vaccine and also kind of health freedom movement is that in the end there tends to be a lot of promotion of products that are not scientifically backed. There's a lot of support for supplements, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, peptides, chelation, which is the process of pulling heavy metals out of the blood, which you don't actually need to do for a vaccinated child. There tends to be a lot of promotion of pseudoscience and pseudoscience that is very expensive for the parents. You know, I mean, this is the tragedy of a lot of these types of conferences is that parents go into these lectures and then are emptied out directly into sales halls full of people selling stuff. So, you know, I think that RFK and Children's Health Defense and other folks in this movement would argue that they are trying to clean up the environment, create safer medical products and that that's, that's what they're doing.

[Jane Marie]

What's his financial stake in any of this? I'm imagining if I were him and this passionate about this. Cause if I were him, not me.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right.

[Jane Marie]

If you were Him I would have some shell company or private equity company or something that's investing in these quote unquote cures for the ailments that he's promoting.

[Anna Merlyn]

So a fun thing that we know that did happen is that RFK applied to trademark the term Make America Healthy Again, which has been sort of a tagline for his campaign. And the trademark application said that they wanted it to be used potentially for vitamins, supplements, cryptocurrency, essential oils and vaccines, which is amazing. And then that trademark application has been transferred to Dell Bigtree, who is the director of communications for Kennedy's presidential campaign and is an anti vaccine figure himself.

[Jane Marie]

Let's talk about Dell for a second.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, he's super interesting. So Del was a producer on a CBS show called the Doctors, is I think a real like true believer in the anti vaccine cause I interviewed him once and he told me that he's unvaccinated. His parents were big into natural health. But anyway, he became the producer of a pretty successful anti vaccine documentary called Vaxxed with Andrew Wakefield. And that kind of launched his new career in the sort of alternate health space. He now has a website and a show about health freedom called the High Wire. But I think, you know, is also poised now to become like a power player in Washington.

[Jane Marie]

He's gonna be rich with the MAHA thing if that's his license.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, I guess we'll see what they do with it. You know, I mean, I wanna stress that they haven't applied any of these applications. Like they haven't actually come out with like a patented MAHA supplement or anything yet. But you know, he, he can now. So. Fascinating.

[Jane Marie]

Why crypto in the middle of all that?

[Anna Merlyn]

That's a great question. And I don't know, but I do know that Kennedy spoke at at least one crypto conference. It also just kind of makes sense, honestly. Like if you don't trademark it, then maybe somebody else is going to come along and make a MAHA cryptocurrency. Right? Like, crypto is so wild and it moves so fast. I guess it makes sense to just do that to protect your brand. So. Sure, why not?

[Jane Marie]

Okay, so you don't want to get.

[Anna Merlyn]

An unlicensed off brand MAHA cryptocurrency. That would be crazy. That would be crazy.

[Jane Marie]

What if it wasn't legit?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, I mean, you know, what if there was a virus in it?

[Jane Marie]

How much do you think his nomination and confirmation are based on his name?

[Anna Merlyn]

Huh? Yeah, that's a good question. I think that he has definitely always really played on the family legacy and talked about it a lot and referred to it a lot during his presidential campaign before he suspended it to endorse Trump. Members of his family, obviously, the Kennedy family is huge. Have come out a couple times to be like, please stop it. Stop what you're doing. Like, in 2019, there was an open letter from a bunch of his family members essentially saying, like, we love him, but we as a family don't stand behind what he's doing. Because at that point, Children's Health Defense were one of the two biggest buyers of anti vaccine ads on Facebook. It was like them. And essentially a guy named Larry Cook who ran this organization called Stop Mandatory Vaccination. But, yeah, Children's Health Defense was emerging as a pretty big entity even before COVID and then again after he ran a Super bowl ad that was during his campaign last year, ran a Super bowl ad that was explicitly sort of tying his career and political aspirations to his family. It was. The ad was meant to look like a vintage JFK ad. Oh, again, members of his family came out and were like, this is very offensive to us. And then most recently, I believe one of his cousins issued another statement calling him a predator, I believe was the term that she used and had this very graphic description of when she used to come over to his dorm room watching him blend up mice for his snake. So his family keeps being like, we are not uniformly behind this, but nonetheless.

[Jane Marie]

He has the name.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, he has the name. He's constantly referring to the name, the family legacy, you know, the history of public service and his family. And I do think it's lent him some gravitas that it would have been hard for him to come by on his own.

[Jane Marie]

Right?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

Right. Does he have a job or is. I think, children, you need a job if you're a Kennedy. First of all, that's a great question.

[Anna Merlyn]

I don't know. Again, there are so many of them. One of the things that came up during the confirmation hearings was that Elizabeth Warren was like, you as an attorney, take commissions from people who join these lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Like, you know, you recruit people for lawsuits and you get paid some kind of commission as a result of that. And so Elizabeth Warren was like, will you commit to not doing this when you're HHS secretary? This is a huge conflict of interest for you to be heading the government agency that kind of oversees or regulates pharmaceutical companies. And he was essentially like, you're asking me not to sue pharmaceutical companies and I won't do that. And she's like, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm asking you not to financially benefit from doing that because it's a conflict of interest. And they yelled at each other for a minute and then of course, it wasn't settled. Right, Right. Yes. According to Elizabeth Warren's office, Kennedy has made nearly $2.5 million in referral fees from a law firm called Wisner Baum and receives a 10% contingency fee in cases if the plaintiffs win. So amid all of this, he eventually said that he would not take referral fees anymore for one case, which is about the HPV vaccine, which again, before COVID was gearing up to be a huge target of the anti vaccine movement. This claim that the HPV vaccine was like, especially dangerous or especially bad.

[Jane Marie]

I have a lot of family members who don't, quote, unquote, believe in the hpv. You know, like, we don't let our children get that.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right.

[Jane Marie]

And I'm like, cool, well, 20 years from now, let's talk about you letting them get cervical cancer.

[Anna Merlyn]

It's really upsetting because I'm like, okay, if you don't believe in an HPV vaccine, like, I hope that you are getting regular gynecological care for those kids. I hope that they're getting pap smears every year, because that's the only other way to see it. When it's still treatable, just get the vaccine. But this comes up periodically for HPV and then for hep B, which is given at birth or right shortly after birth. And you know, hep B is sexually transmitted. And so the anti vaccine movement doesn't like that one also. But of course, the entire argument is vaccinating well before anybody could possibly be.

[Jane Marie]

Exposed to that is the right thing to do.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, it's the entire idea behind vaccines. Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

And it's easy. Although I have heard arguments also from those same family members and from the news that the MRNA technology is really bothersome to them. Like, it's going to come in and like, take over your DNA or something.

[Anna Merlyn]

Vaccines cannot damage or change your DNA. MRNA vaccine technology is a pretty crazy advancement. Like, it's pretty incredible. And it's probably gonna lead to being able to make incredibly effective vaccines against other things, like potentially cancer vaccines and stuff. It's really, really cool. And in a less crazy political environment, we'd be like, celebrating the incredible advancement of this really, really wild technology that like, our ancestors could have only dreamed of, but instead were scared of it. And the thing though is if you don't wanna get an mrn. There's Novavax, which is, you know, a more traditional vaccine formulation. Folks don't get that either, so I don't actually think that's that's the real concern. But yeah, that's that's what people say.

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[Jane Marie]

Since science has disproved the idea that vaccines cause autism, why would we change fundamentally, like how our healthcare system or how vaccines work?

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. So the short answer is that they don't trust the science. They don't believe it. Kennedy, his running mate Nicole Shanahan. A lot of these folks continue to insist that there's evidence that vaccines cause autism. There just isn't. You know, like one of the studies they never talk about is this study of half a million Danish children that came out a few years ago. Like these kids were tracked over something like 10 years. It was incredibly definitive and they don't talk about it. Instead, during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy was referring to a study that is actually a paper published like a WordPress blog. It's not like a peer reviewed study. Yeah. So the issue here is not whether or not they're like sincere in these beliefs because sure, let's assume they're 100% sincere and this is just what they believe. The fact that no amount of evidence steers them from this course means that we end up arguing about settled science over and over and over and over rather than being able to like move on to anything else. And so when I was talking to people about their concerns about what he may do as HHS secretary, one of the big ones is the idea of directing federal money and federal research towards trying to prove things that have already been debunked. For instance, some kind of link between vaccines and autism or vaccines and some other illnesses, and diverting that money from what else it could possibly be used for, or directing federal funds towards bogus treatments or even just no longer through the FDA or the cdc, which are two of the agencies that HHS is over warning people against non evidence based treatments. There's probably going to be a time under Trump and under Kennedy where you go on the FDA or the CDC website and they no longer warn you against drinking raw milk, for instance, because that's one of his things, or not enough attention to infectious disease, because that's one of the things that Kennedy famously has said is that he wants to quote, give infectious disease a break for eight Years.

[Jane Marie]

What?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah. So Kennedy essentially argues that the government spends too much time and money and funding on infectious disease and they should be paying more attention to chronic disease. And that's one of those things that sounds very reasonable until you say, wait a minute, this is the US Government. We have more money than God. Why can't we focus on both? Also, infectious disease has been a huge issue the last few years. Covid bird flu, like, so this was another statement that came up a bunch during the confirmation hearings where it was like, what do you mean by that?

[Jane Marie]

What alternative is he seeing for how people should take care of themselves?

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. So Kennedy, on a podcast in 2023 and remarks that were reported on for the first time by my colleague Kara Butler, essentially said that people who are addicted to opioids, antidepressants, which he views as something that can be addictive, which is not true. He's very critical of SSRIs.

[Jane Marie]

Is he not an addict, though?

[Anna Merlyn]

He's a recovering heroin addict. And actually one of the really solid things that he said during his confirmation hearing was that he refused to denounce Suboxone or other medically assisted treatments. Yeah, I was very, very relieved to see that. And under different circumstances, the fact that our HHS secretary is somebody who's recovered from addiction could be super powerful and.

[Jane Marie]

Is into harm reduction.

[Anna Merlyn]

But instead, Kennedy has proposed that who are addicted to opioids should be sent to what he called wellness farms in rural areas to get off of drugs, which he counts as SSRIs, as one of those things, and that they should grow their own food because so many of people's problems come from not consuming.

[Jane Marie]

Does he know how many people use drugs?

[Anna Merlyn]

And also like, okay, are we saying that people are going to be mandatorily sent to wellness farms also?

[Jane Marie]

What's the function of how you get people in there? Like they get a criminal charge?

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, he essentially said if you're convicted of a drug offense or if you want to get off your SSRIs, your ADHD medications, then you'll get sent to these wellness farms, he said, to get re parented and to reconnect with communities. It's just very wild. It's a very wild set of.

[Jane Marie]

And he thinks that any government in the world has the capacity to manage that.

[Anna Merlyn]

This is one of the interesting things about a lot of his suggestions is like, he's very against SSRIs and thinks that they're over prescribed. It's like, okay, where do you see the HHS secretary's role then? In reducing the number of people who are prescribed SSRIs. Like that sounds like a intrusion in the patient doctor relationship that most people would find really objectionable.

[Jane Marie]

But isn't that what HHS is already so excited about, especially with abortion and other. Like they're really excited to be right up in your business.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, the number of people who take SSRIs or take drugs like Ozempic, which he's also been intermittently sort of critical of, like there are a lot of.

[Jane Marie]

Ozempic is so good for people.

[Anna Merlyn]

So during the confirmation hearings he described GLP1s as miraculous, like miracles. But then in a Fox News appearance in October, he, he said they're counting on selling Ozempic to Americans because we're so stupid and so addicted to drugs. And claim that the European Union was investigating Ozempic for suicidal ideation, even though by that point the EU had already published that report and found that there is no evidence that GLP1s cause or contribute to suicidal ideation. So it's one of those things where on some of the things he was to me misrepresenting his past statements and in others he was just flip flopping. He's kind of done this on abortion too. Or during the hearings he described every abortion as a tragedy. During his campaign he said he would protect abortion rights. It's just, it's sort of, it can be hard on some issues to figure out what he thinks because it seems to change from appearance to appearance.

[Jane Marie]

When do we get to just say that this person's a lunatic? Like the thing we're stepping into is like a completely different world where we already have like a broken healthcare system. But we're going to have to think about our individual health through the eyes of a number of people who have no idea what they're talking about. I've heard of people hoarding Plan B. I've heard of people, you know, and there's like an underground railroad for every kind of drug, drug.

[Anna Merlyn]

But that doesn't replace a functional healthcare system. I mean, the thing that I've written about before with the sort of anti vaxx and alternate health worlds that I think applies here is that they don't really believe in public health, they don't really believe in community health.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Anna Merlyn]

Those things don't really come into play. And so when you're in anti vaccine and sort of alternate health spaces, you hear a lot of discussion about personal health supplements, you know, getting healthy sort of personally, but you don't hear about sort of our obligation to other People.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah, it's rugged individualism.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, it's bootstraps for health. When he was first nominated, I contacted a bunch of public health experts and scientists and immunologists and, you know, people that I respect and that I talk to all the time for stories was like, you know, what are you worried about? And One of them, Dr. Andrea Love, who's an immunologist, sent me like probably like a 2000 word email being like, here are all the things that I am worried about because they are so vast. It was hard to read. But it was also helpful to see kind of like an overview.

[Jane Marie]

Can you list them off?

[Anna Merlyn]

Skewing, redirecting or reallocating, like grant and research funding towards, for instance, stuff that's been debunked. Cutting funding for education and public health initiatives like vaccine campaigns or public health interventions like fluoride. Slowing or halting regulatory review and approval for things like vaccines, biologics, immunotherapies, Other stuff that he might not see the value in going after cell and gene therapy because he wrongly refers to Covid vaccines as gene therapy.

[Jane Marie]

That's the MRNA thing. That's the argument that I was saying that I hear from my family members. They believe it's like changing your genetics.

[Anna Merlyn]

And so in addition to being false, that also suggests that he thinks like gene therapy is bad, I guess, conflating.

[Jane Marie]

To not bad things.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. Also just in general, making public health communication less reliable, making it more politically skewed. Meaning that sometimes you can't necessarily trust that public health communication is evidence based and science based. Delaying or withholding factual information about natural disasters, foodborne illness, outbreaks, epidemics. Appointing people who are either unqualified or ideologically motivated to head agencies like CDC and NIH. The other thing that I would add, Dr. Love didn't talk about this, but I've been thinking about this. He was very, very, very concerned about cdc, NIH and fda, but doesn't talk a lot about other agencies that are also part of hhs. HHS is the biggest government agency. It has trillions of dollars in budget, like Medicare and Medicaid are under hhs. And during his hearings he couldn't accurately define Medicare Part A and Part B, which again, like Medicare is like half of the HHS budget. It's very popular. It's like very important. So just the fact that he hadn't done his homework about part A part.

[Jane Marie]

The biggest part of his job. Yeah, yeah.

[Anna Merlyn]

And so people are worried about defunding Medicare and chip. Also, a lot of what HHS does is like international health communication. That might not happen. Also, he's been super critical of, like, genetically engineered foods and pesticides like glyphosate, which might mean that those things can't be legally used in the US Anymore. We'll see. That might impact the stability of food supplies. So the very general thing you can say about people like Kennedy, people like Kash Patel, people like Tulsi Gabbard, is that all of them are being elected to head agencies that they believe are fundamentally corrupt and in need of complete reform. Overhauling investigation in some cases, like criminal investigation.

[Jane Marie]

And if a bunch of people die, who cares?

[Anna Merlyn]

I think that they would argue that, you know, these policies are going to save lives. That is not the argument that I would make.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Anna Merlyn]

I don't believe that. That.

[Jane Marie]

Well, I think, yeah, not not giving people polio vaccines is like, not going to save lives.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. So he has said that he would not take away polio vaccines. But we also know this is a.

[Jane Marie]

Crazy conversation to be. Sorry.

[Anna Merlyn]

You know, it is crazy.

[Jane Marie]

It is crazy in this day and age to be like, well, he said he wouldn't take away the polio vaccine.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah.

[Jane Marie]

But he will take away the whooping cough one for babies. And the, you know, like, what are we talking about? This feels like crazy. Making.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah, the polio thing specifically is a really great example because his allies in the anti vax movement have tried to get approval withdrawn for polio vaccines. And it is sort of unclear to me in this instance, like, what he thinks about polio vaccines. He's argued that, like, the polio vaccine didn't save lives, that, like, there's mythology around it, but that's, like, not true. And again, one of the reasons why Mitch McConnell voted against his confirmation is as a polio survivor, he knows that's not true. Also, like, if you talk to, like, our parents specifically, like, they remember when the polio vaccine was rolled out, they remember how life changing it was like, it was like mass celebrations. One of the specific concerns that I think points to more general concerns is around raw milk. Kennedy is a big fan of raw milk.

[Jane Marie]

But, like, we fixed it. We. There was a problem.

[Anna Merlyn]

There was.

[Jane Marie]

And we had to fix it.

[Anna Merlyn]

We did.

[Jane Marie]

With crazy great science.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Took years.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

And now people aren't dying from milk.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. I actually wrote a whole profile of the CEO of Raw Farm, who is. It's a raw milk farm. They do raw milk and cheese. Mark McAfee, who's the CEO, says that Kennedy has been a customer for a long time. I think that one of the first things we will definitely see is permitting the interstate sale of raw milk, which is illegal right now. And that has been subject to tons of battles. And that's what Mark McAfee, who's the CEO of Raw Farm, he's going to get probably brought in to HHS in, like, a. Some kind of, like, advisory role to set, like, raw milk standards. So we're going to see interstate sale.

[Jane Marie]

Of raw milk because they have some idea that raw milk is.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yes.

[Jane Marie]

Better for people.

[Anna Merlyn]

They do have that idea.

[Jane Marie]

Okay. And everyone's just gonna be pooping and barfing all over the place.

[Anna Merlyn]

So I kind of wish that it was. I wish that pooping and barfing was the worst of it.

[Jane Marie]

What's the worst of it?

[Anna Merlyn]

Well, bird flu. So, yes, again, to not be alarmist. Like, scientists are still looking at whether or not you can contract bird flu from drinking raw milk. What we do know is that a bunch of cats here in LA county died after drinking raw milk that was found to have bird flu virus in it. And for right now, the best scientific guidance we have is to avoid raw milk, both because it can cause other foodborne illnesses like E. Coli and because it carries right now an increased risk of being contaminated with bird flu.

[Jane Marie]

Right.

[Anna Merlyn]

And When I interviewed Mr. McAfee, the Raw Farm CEO, he told me that even if his milk had bird flu in it, which it has been found, like, his farm was in quarantine for a while in December because of that, that people couldn't get bird flu from the milk even if there was bird flu in the milk. That is his belief. That's his belief. That's his stance.

[Jane Marie]

He's not a scientist.

[Anna Merlyn]

No. He was a paramedic before he started his farm.

[Jane Marie]

So he just feels that way.

[Anna Merlyn]

He believes it very strongly. And he would say that he has scientific evidence to back it up. Raw Farm and this thing that he runs called the Raw Milk Institute, they have their scientific experts that they will cite to say that, you know, this isn't a risk for me personally. I wouldn't drink raw milk anyway.

[Jane Marie]

Did the benefits outweigh it?

[Anna Merlyn]

No. So, again, according to public health experts that I trust, the general advice around raw milk for a long time has been that there are no health benefits to it that are not outweighed by the risk of contracting things like E. Coli. Sure. And that pasteurized milk confers the same health benefits that raw milk has without the risk. They would argue that pasteurization strips milk of some of those beneficial nutrients. I think that the Raw Milk. People would argue that they have their own Science. And Mr. McAfee specifically talks about having really high standards for cleanliness and stuff on the farm to make it really safe. And they have an on site do anyway. Yeah, right. They have an on site pathogen testing lab. Kennedy, he had this viral tweet in October. So the tweet was, fda's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you. Preserve your records and pack your bags.

[Jane Marie]

What's the future they're envisioning, do you think?

[Anna Merlyn]

I mean, broadly, like, Maha is about deregulation. It's about, like, deregulating the sort of safety systems that.

[Jane Marie]

So it's about money.

[Anna Merlyn]

I do think a lot of people are going to make a lot of money. I also think that it's going to take away the sort of presumption of safety we have in some things, and it's going to require all of us to, quote, unquote, be more careful. But really, that just means we're all assuming a little bit more risk.

[Jane Marie]

Sure.

[Anna Merlyn]

We have been so extraordinarily lucky for so long in this country and in other developed countries to not have to deal with some of the diseases that killed kids in earlier centuries or radically change people's lives. And I am worried about going back to a different time, but it's tunnel.

[Jane Marie]

Vision because there are plenty of places on Earth where polio, malaria, like all things that we've, quote, unquote, solved, measles, mumps, et cetera, are rampant and killing a ton of people.

[Anna Merlyn]

Yeah. And I'm worried about our moral responsibility as, like, the richest nation on Earth to help other people become healthier. You know, especially places where we've extracted tons of resources or.

[Jane Marie]

Yeah.

[Anna Merlyn]

And also just in general, like, these things have been viewed for years as diplomatic efforts, you know, like, ways to both, like, increase our standing around the world, create peace, create stability, and also, like, it is in everyone's benefit to not have polio spreading anywhere. We saw this with COVID anything. We saw this with the delta variant. Anything that spreads elsewhere comes to us eventually. The sort of dark joke that's been made is, like, there's going to be pushback from pharmaceutical companies, you know, like, who fund a lot of people in office. You know, I guess we'll see how that turns out. That'll be an interesting fight to watch play out. So there's going to be a lot of pushback, but also this is going to be a magnification of something that already happens, which is that people will be able to access the care that they can pay for. And so the care that you or I, as relatively privileged people can get access to or as people who are able to travel is going to be different than the care that other folks can receive. I think that confirmation has the potential to be the most consequential for people on a day to day level. It has the potential to be the most impactful on people's lives. We haven't even talked about other stuff that's under hhs, like the Office of Refugee Resettlement, you know, anti trafficking measures.

[Jane Marie]

What are those?

[Anna Merlyn]

Right.

[Jane Marie]

Like, no, honestly doesn't. This administration does not care.

[Anna Merlyn]

Right. So again, like, what's going to happen with that? So, you know, it's going to be consequential. It's going to be a big deal. There's a reason why, you know, one public health expert I talked to said, like, this is a catastrophe. Like it really can't be overstated. But at the same time having an understanding of the scope of what's going on and the ability to push back on some of the stuff and try to protect ourselves and our communities. Already the response we've seen from Democratic leaders is pretty wanting, pretty weak. So we'll see. But the one thing that we did not talk about at all, that I do think is important to point out is the rhetoric that Kennedy has repeated around AIDS and specifically questioning whether HIV causes aids, which it does. Right. He has suggested in the past that poppers, which are a drug, might have been the cause of aids, which is a theory that was literally debunked in the early 1980s. Yeah. Mm. We've talked about like his policy stuff, but there is so much other stuff that he's said over the years that is really wild and that if he still believes, it would be pretty consequential and the AIDS stuff specifically. So PEPFAR funding right now is already. PEPFAR is funding that we give to other countries, mostly in Sub Saharan Africa, to help with AIDS prevention and care. It's incredibly important. It saved millions of lives. It's a program that was put into place under George W. Bush, has bipartisan support. It is suspended right now as part of the Trump administration's kind of general suspension of foreign aid. And again, if you have somebody over HHS who has suggested that HIV might not cause aids, if you have a president like Donald Trump who's incredibly sort of isolationist and doesn't seem to believe in foreign aid, there are really big concerns about what that could mean for stuff like AIDS prevention in Africa and other developing parts of the world. So, I mean, I guess, I guess we'll see. I mean, we, we do know a little bit because Trump put out a, like, Maha proclamation the, the day before. We're having this conversation, sort of doing like a rundown of what the agenda is going to be for HHS under Kennedy. You know, from what I'm hearing, we're already winning and we're gonna win so much. And you know, that that sounds great. Love to win.

[Jane Marie]

I'm looking forward to someday doing a story about the superlatives of the Trump administration. Just like he, he survives on superlatives.

[Anna Merlyn]

He really, he loves them. He loves them so much.

[Jane Marie]

Anyway, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me again. That's it for this week. We have a tip line open. Call us at 323-2481-488-323-2481, and leave us a message about anything that you think is funky out there. Talk to me.

[Paige]

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