I’m already anxious over Thanksgiving dinner. I close my eyes and dream of the turkey emerging from the oven with a deep, golden-brown skin that glistens under the kitchen light, its surface crackling slightly as the heat bubbles up. The rough, dimpled skin looks, at first, enticing, but there is something sinister in this bundled, steaming meat. Juices bead like sweat and run along the crisp, lacquered skin, hinting at the fatty, bready stuffing deep inside. The bird rests proudly on the roasting pan, a perfect centerpiece, and it begins to stare back at me. It makes me nervous, and I begin to squirm. I jolt awake when my wife calls my name––”Did you drift off? C’mon. Come cut up this Costco chicken.”
The swarthy and sinister RFK Jr., the one who appears every bit as baked—physically and mentally—as that dead brown bird on your Thanksgiving table, is dismantling America’s already shaky healthcare system. Along with canceling access to basic healthcare like vaccines and Medicaid, his continued cuts to rural hospitals, and the cuts to medical research across the board, are disastrous.
Leadership within the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services has been decimated. Kennedy fired Director Susan Monarez. The entire CDC expert vaccine panel was dismissed. It seems they believed in the effectiveness of vaccines. mRNA vaccine development has been defunded. HIV research has all but disappeared. Cancer research has been significantly reduced as well as the study of several other diseases. Belief in the proven science and effectiveness of vaccines appears to be the number one fireable offense in Kennedy’s world.
Yes, he said that. “We need to stop trusting the experts.” The man who made it through elite private prep schools, Harvard, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Pace University. A 14-year heroin habit and a brain worm tempered this. His non-commitment to any specific ideology reminds me of the famous Groucho quote, “These are my principles. If you don’t like them, well, I have others.”
What makes a man forsake the values that his family has held for generations? He was raised in an atmosphere of logic, reason, and scientific process, though he holds no degree anywhere near a science or medical discipline. Why did he turn his back on the stellar education he was privileged with?
Kennedy is known for his “nontraditional” medical cures, and that’s a nice way to say “quackery.” His sidekick, Dr. Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was an actual surgeon. Like Kennedy, Oz is an ambitious Harvard grad and a media hound. He was even a professor of surgery at Columbia University, though tellingly, Columbia has cut ties with him and erased him from their website. He has a long record of promoting pseudoscientific theories, faith healing, alternative medicine, dietary supplements, and paranormal beliefs. Oz informally “advised” Trump during the pandemic, and promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine. You will not be surprised to hear that he owned $630,000 worth of stock in two different pharma companies that made or distributed the drug.
In defending his firing of scientists, researchers and trained doctors, RFK Jr. claims that he is committed to “gold-standard” science in his MAHA efforts–– implying that the thousands of trials and tests and studies on vaccines, drugs and medical protocols up to date are universally faulty. Or maybe he knows that Trump likes anything with the concept of “gold” attached to it. Or maybe it’s gold that he, himself, is after.
Chris Newlin, who formerly worked for TV news stations, writes for texasoutlawwriters.com. This is an edited version that originally appeard here.