Trump putting anti-vaxxer RFK Jr in charge of health should come with a ‘risk to life’ warning

If Robert F Kennedy Jr hadn’t launched his presidential campaign – and if Trump hadn’t co-opted him and his share of the vote – would anyone really have chosen to make this crank responsible for the lives and health of the American people, asks Sean O’Grady

In the classic 1964 Stanley Kubrick movie Dr Strangelove, probably Peter Sellers’ greatest work, an American general goes rogue and starts a nuclear war with Russia.

It seems a timely moment to revisit the story, especially as it’s being revived to great acclaim on the London stage by Armando Iannucci. General Jack D Ripper is especially paranoid about devious communist plots, as in this creepy exchange with a bemused RAF officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake:

Gen Ripper: “Mandrake, do you realise that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.”

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: “Good Lord, Jack.”

Ripper: “You know when fluoridation first began?”

Mandrake: “I... no, no. I don’t, Jack.”

Ripper: “Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hardcore Commie works.”

Satire follows politics, and politics follows satire – and shortly, the United States is about to get its very own General Ripper as secretary for health and human services; Robert F Kennedy Jr.

General Jack D Ripper is especially paranoid about devious communist plots. Just see his creepy exchange with a bemused RAF officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake... remind you of anyone? (Snap/Shutterstock)

The maverick son and nephew of distinguished American heroes, RFK also thinks that fluoridation is a “dangerous neurotoxin”. He’s declared, on his fellow Trumpite Elon Musk’s dying social media platform (a dangerous neurotoxin itself): “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease. President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @MELANIATRUMP want to Make America Healthy Again.”

On the other hand, it reduces tooth decay, but Bobby doesn’t choose to acknowledge that fact. The only cause for hope so far as Americans’ oral health is concerned is that it’s not a matter for the federal government, unless RFK wants to designate it as poison. In which case his staff, who’d have to back that up, would have some difficult moral choices facing them. As for Trump, he’s brought his usual careful, measured, evidence-based response to this revolution in US public health: “Sounds OK to me.”

It’s anti-science nonsense, of course, because the concentrations in drinking water and popular toothpastes are far too small to cripple anyone. But since when did the science get in the way of a conspiracy theory? Put it this way: if RFK hadn’t launched his presidential campaign – and if Trump hadn’t co-opted him and his, say, 4 per cent of the vote – would anyone have chosen to put this crank in charge of the American people?

Kennedy is also famous as an unhinged antivaxxer, with a long and inglorious track record. We cannot easily discount a chap who says: “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Though we can only hope that even he realises the irresponsible horror of encouraging parents to stop vaccinating their kids.

Recently, an NBC reporter cornered RFK Jr, who said in the heat of the moment: “If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away. People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information. So I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there – and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”

Trump said something similar a few weeks ago (yes, the guy who thought injecting disinfectant could beat the coronavirus): “Well, I’m going to talk to him [Kennedy] and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views.”

So, what Americans will have in place for the next pandemic – as well as routine vaccines for measles and so on – is the option of taking them, but in a context where the risks are exaggerated and the lifesaving benefits underplayed. It could be worse, true, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

RFK does make more sense on animal welfare, pesticides, and the additives that American food manufacturers and the fast food industry put in their food – significant factors in the country’s obesity epidemic. But that is something that should be done anyway. It doesn’t make up for the loss of herd immunity and vaccine protection for Americans, and the potentially colossal loss of life that will follow.

In this and so many other areas, a second Trump administration looks like being one in which the kind of standards that should prevail in a prosperous advanced democratic civilisation are going to be degraded incrementally.

Wild appointees such as Matt Gaetz, reckless executive orders, pushing Congress into recess to avoid scrutiny, almost total presidential immunity from prosecution, voter suppression, media bullying, rule for, by and with the billionaires... that is no conspiracy theory, but a realistic vista of Trump’s America.