Action 144 RFK Jr. is a ghoul – (and Collins voted to confirm him)
Background: Do you need evidence that Kennedy is a ghoul? Consider his behavior in the dead bear incident (1), or the dead whale incident (2). And if that isn’t enough to turn your stomach, consider what he is doing to preventive medicine, with his quack, anti-vax theories (3). Recently Dr. Jason Goldman, President of the American College of Physicians, sounded the alarm (4), warning of the anti-science panel Kennedy convened when he ousted all of the previous members of the immunization practices committee. Many other doctors have issued similar warnings (5).
In an old abandoned graveyard near where I live, there is a monument to a family that lost 7 children to diphtheria – 3 boys and 4 girls – in the span of 3 weeks in 1863. (6) If you can stand it, take a moment to imagine yourself as a parent of those suffering children, slowly dying as buildup of a thick, gray mucus clogged their airways. Fully imagine the anguish of parents, powerless to prevent or alleviate the suffering of your beloved children. Or remember the children in my generation who died of polio, unable to breathe as their respiratory muscles became paralyzed. Or think about smallpox, which kills by severe toxemia, multi-organ failure, and, in some cases, severe skin lesions leading to bacterial infections and pneumonia. Or the uncontrollable muscle spasms and broken bones caused by tetanus. Or yellow fever, causing hemorrhaging and liver failure which, in 1798, claimed the life of one of my 4th great-uncles who had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Diphtheria, polio, smallpox, measles, meningitis, mumps, whooping cough, rubella, tetanus, yellow fever and other fatal diseases are prevented by vaccines. We have forgotten the enormous suffering and death caused by these diseases, because they have been largely eliminated thanks to public health vaccinations. And our forgetting of this suffering is just fine with Kennedy and his ilk.
There is a constellation of beliefs called Social Darwinism (7), which perverts the evolutionary insights of Charles Darwin. In a nutshell, Social Darwinists believe in rewarding those who are the most successful, while not trying to lift up or rescue those who are poor or sick. In their view, the poor, disabled, sick, mentally deficient and other unfortunate people are just a drag on society and should be left to natural selection to weed out of the gene pool. It is an attitude of unconscionable hubris and arrogance, usually found only among the healthy and fortunate. Kennedy fits the profile, as evidenced by his approval of cuts to programs supporting vulnerable populations. There is nothing wrong with trying to help people become healthier with better diet and lifestyle choices. There is everything wrong and immoral with congress critters, and public health officials like Kennedy, cutting the vulnerable adrift in the service of tax breaks for billionaires.
Action: First, make sure you and your family are protected as much as possible. Confer with your trusted physician, get (and stay) up-to-date with your vaccinations – in case they become scarce. Don’t put off your needed routine health screenings, they may become unavailable or unaffordable in the future. Do your best to be healthy yourself, so you can help others. Second, help your friends and neighbors to navigate the deteriorating public health landscape. Third, support, join, or form a group of doctors and other health professionals who are trying to cope with the situation (for example, www.healthypeninsula.org/). Fourth, be aware of and support the recent efforts of health professionals in the Northeast (including our own Dr. Nirav Shah) to create a substitute for Kennedy’s compromised vaccine panel (8). Fifth, call the unforgivable Susan Collins and tell her to kill the budget bill before it kills us all.
Urgency: The next pandemic is likely to be a crisis. Be vigilant and stay prepared. Call Collins today.
Extra Credit:
(1) https://www.npr.org/2024/08/05/nx-s1-5063939/rfk-jr-central-park-bear-bicycle The article also mentions that he may have eaten a barbecued dog.
(2) https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-kennedy-whale-investigation-09c494d8164c6f9bde9ece39637ea4d3
(3) https://www.ajmc.com/view/5-health-policy-stances-of-robert-f-kennedy-jr
(4) https://substack.com/@politicsusa46/note/c-130095750
This is on TikTok, where a large number of younger voters get their news
(5) https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/health/cdc-vaccine-advisers-takeaways/
(6) Clancy, Lynda Love in the time of Diphtheria, Maine Boats and Harbors, Issue 67 (winter 2002-2002), p 72 ff