RFK Jr. could ‘significantly undermine’ public health, Yale, Connecticut experts say

CT Insider – Wednesday, January 15, 2025
By Cris Villalonga-Vivoni

Several Connecticut public health professionals from across the medical field are among the 700 who signed a letter to the U.S. Senate recently, encouraging members to vote against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s nomination for secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services as part of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet.

The letter, released by the newly formed “Defend Public Health” coalition on Monday, is just one of many recent efforts by public health professionals to stop Kennedy’s appointment – raising concerns over his qualifications to run a national health agency and his history contradicting scientific consensus.

“[Kennedy’s] unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world,” the letter reads.

According to the coalition, the medical professionals’ concerns with Kennedy’s nomination focus on several things, including his qualifications to run an over-$1.5 trillion department with more than 80,000 workers.

Kennedy, nephew of President John F. Kennedy, 70, has worked as an activist, author and environmental lawyer. Over his career, however, he started to explore and promote conspiracies and contradict scientific consensus, most notably on vaccines.

Throughout the campaign trail, Kennedy has hinted at some of the changes he plans to make once in office. According to the Associated Press, this includes reorganizing certain agencies in the HHS, cracking down on processed foods and pharmaceutical companies, weakening Food and Drug Administration regulations around specific therapies and medications, and more.

“It is also essential that the Secretary of HHS fully understand how our health system works in the US, including the recognition that the public health system depends on providing support for state, local, academic and community-based partners working in cities and towns across the country,” the letter reads.

The letter highlights concerns over Kennedy’s history of supporting conspiracy-driven theories on vaccines, COVID-19, HIV and flouride in water. Public health experts previously told CT Insider that Kennedy has often made health claims without evidence or while ignoring scientific data that proves otherwise.

“It is unfathomable that President Trump, whose Administration implemented Operation Warp Speed, the historic, rapid development of highly effective vaccines for COVID-19, would now be nominating someone who is decidedly anti-vaccine and could, if confirmed, undermine not only the progress we’ve made in saving lives from COVID-19 but also from life-threatening infectious diseases including polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, seasonal flu and more,” the letter reads.

Many Connecticut-based professionals who signed their name are faculty members at universities – like Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University– or currently work as medical providers across the state. Some of the professionals who signed the letter from Connecticut were contacted by CT Insider, but did not return requests for comment.

This is just one of many letters in recent weeks that have come out to stop Kennedy’s nomination. More than 15,000 doctors from the Coalition to Protect Health Care nationwide signed an open letter to encourage senators to vote against Kennedy’s nomination earlier this month. Similarly, the Action Network, a national activism group, said they’ve received over 3,800 letters opposing his nomination.

On the other side of the issue, however, there were 800 medical professionals who endorsed Kennedy in a letter of support to the Senate back in December. A recent survey of more than 120,000 by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Republicans approve of Kennedy’s appointment.

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