Resignation of RFK Jr Is the Only Sane Path Forward
Resignation is the only path to preserve the Integrity US Medical Science
RFK Jr must resign. I am far from the only person who is calling for his resignation. Multiple professional agencies representing physicians and scientists have recently done the same. Here are the statements from Doctors for America, and the American Public Health Association.
(image credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com)
Between calling autism a preventable disease (it is a syndrome with a genetic basis, which he refuses to acknowledge) and slashing CDC operations to the point that they are unable to respond to a case of lead poisoning (and much more), RFK Jr. is actively destroying the agencies that serve as the backbone of the United States health, safety, and research systems.
Is it a sort of sick humor or blatant incompetence that RFK Jr called for a search for an environmental cause of a neurological syndrome while his own agency has been stripped so bare of resources it can not respond to lead (a known neurotoxin) poisoning of children that happened within the same week?
The man who eliminated the CDC task force to respond to lead poisoning does not care about the health of your children or the environmental factors involved in childhood disease.
The experiment has been done. RFK Jr. is a failure. Even the Trump administration complained that they could not get a statement from HHS when needed as measles cases exploded in Texas and the first child died.
Recently in an interview he claimed he didn’t know where cuts were happening inside of US Health and Human Services. He is the head of this agency.
Perhaps if RFK Jr was a real scientist he would understand that unless you are a quantum particle you do not get to claim the status of Schrodinger's cat. RFK Jr. IS in charge of HHS, the dismantling of critical agencies is occurring and his watch as are deaths and destruction of basic health and safety guardrails. This is his responsibility.
If RFK Jr is so incompetent that he is unclear as to what is occurring inside of his own agency, immediate resignation is the answer.
Instead he held a press conference, standing at a podium answering questions from the media as if he has any medical or scientific training. RFK Jr has none. Much like going to space for 11 minutes does not an astronaut make, reading and mis-interpreting fringe research does not make you a scientist.
Medical doctors do not walk into court rooms and start cos-playing lawyers, it would be absurd. RFK Jr. is absurd and it will kill people.
It is with a heavy heart as a life-long scientist that I will continue to share what we know about how disease resurgences that are coming. Death is at our door.
RFK Jr whose foundation, the Children’s Health Defense has promoted unregulated experimentation on autistic children will not suddenly grow a conscience. He is not interested in reasoning with experienced professionals to achieve the best possible outcome. He is interested in lining his pockets regardless of the consequences for you and I. He is interested in proving his half-cocked theories ‘right’ regardless of mountains of evidence proving him wrong. Some of us, maybe some of our children, will pay the price of this with our lives.
His failure to recuse himself of financial benefit from frivolous vaccine maker lawsuits when he assumed the role of head of HHS should have been grounds for non-confirmation.
Our elected leaders put a man who will financially benefit in charge of the scientific data that was the only thing standing between his lies and the health of the American people.
It is clear as the CDC, NIH, FDA, and HHS crumble under unprecedented department cuts, unable in some cases to maintain basic operations, that RFK Jr. is laying the groundwork to use the agencies resources to prove his half-brained deadly theories correct. He has placed a known anti-vaccine grifter who pushed unproven treatments on autistic children in charge of a vaccine safety study.
There is no moral compass at the top and no one left to stop what may come next except a distributed network of local and state health departments, physicians who take pride in their oath and responsibility to patients, and scientists who remain independent and continue to speak to anyone who cares about community health.
The current leadership has indicated they do not care if your children die if they make a career for themselves. They summarily ignore the results of carefully done research studies.
RFK Jr’s army of disinformation spreaders have harassed and threatened people over the years, convinced against all logic and reason to ignore evidence and rather than support thoughtful research they grasp at dangerous experimentation to the point of murdering their own children.
As for the choices parents make, RFK Jr may not be holding the smoking gun, but he loaded it, put it in plain sight and then spent over a decade feeding people lies and getting them drunk off of fake ideals.
He has convinced people that the very scientists and physicians often with autistic children of their own, are hiding something from the public. The unregulated, illegal experimentation on children alone should have these people in jail, but no, now one of them is heading a vaccine and autism study at the behest of RFK Jr.
There is no sane path forward for science, health, and medicine in the United States except for RFK Jr’s resignation and removal of the inexperienced like-minded spineless sycophants now heading FDA (Marty Makary), CBER (Vinay Prasad), and NIH (Jay Bhattacharya).
What is the cause of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
I have been asked often: “what is the cause of autism?” as if it were a challenge, as if a scientist couldn’t discuss the current research. This is a ‘gotcha’ attempt often perpetrated by RFK Jr demonstrating how he has worked to keep anyone left listening to him in the dark.
Autism is a spectrum disorder with an up to 90% inherited genetic basis. De novo (new) genetic mutations can be found in some cases. One potential environmental factor not discussed by RFK Jr is congenital (parent to child) CMV (Cytomegalovirus) infection and childhood CMV infection.
CMV is an often symptomless viral illness that is relatively common in the population with significantly more exposure in Hispanic and Black populations (see: seropositivity tables in the study linked above). This 2024 study in the peer reviewed, well respected journal Pediatrics showed that children with congenial CMV infection were 2.5-times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than their peers.
If RFK Jr. admitted that a viral infection is a potential environmental factor, it would naturally follow that that vaccines would be helpful, exactly what RFK Jr. has fought decades to eliminate.
Here are links to reputable research reports indicating a potential link between CMV and autism: Maternal CMV seropositivity and autism symptoms in children (2018), Postnatal Cytomegalovirus Infection May Increase the Susceptibility of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex to Autism Spectrum Disorders (2022), Autism in a child with congenital cytomegalovirus infection (Case Report, 1983), Brief report: autistic disorder in three children with cytomegalovirus infection (Case Report, 2004), Neurodevelopmental outcome in children with congenital cytomegalovirus infection: A prospective multicenter cohort study, (2023).
If you type the words “CMV infection autism” into Pubmed you get a total of 68 reports with increasing frequency over time.
There is more evidence supporting a link between autism and CMV than autism and vaccines, in fact over 200 peer reviewed research papers have shown there is no link between autism and vaccines. Why are RFK Jr and his cohort of anti-vaccine advocates ignoring reports like this in favor of debunked theories?
Because it would mean a vaccine may be helpful and RFK Jr has a vested financial interest in making sure your children can’t get vaccines.
A conference is being held in Minnesota this year to discuss this very topic. For completeness, not every study has turned up a link, though most have. Here is a study that argues that CMV and ASD are not linked. More research should be done here because if a vaccine could reduce severity or rates of ASD that would be an important finding.
Finally, internationally autism rates have gone up (not just in the United States). This rise is correlated with an increased diagnostic criteria in every country where rates have ‘gone up’. For example, Denmark introduced an expanded diagnostic criteria and rates immediately went up. The same occurred in the United States, per a CDC report released nearly in tandem with RFK Jr saying that no one understands the cause of the rising autism rates.
To summarize, there is not necessarily an increase in rates, but more people are being diagnosed due to an expansion in diagnostic criteria.
It seems that RFK Jr might want to spend some time reading the reports that come from the agencies he oversees, perhaps even attempting to understand them or speaking to scientists that don’t trade in half-baked conspiracy theories. Or instead, simply resign.
I can not imagine a less competent leader given the huge number of gaffs, missteps, and false dangerous information he has spewed over the last two months while these agencies fall apart and he admits to being unaware of what cuts have even occurred.
What about RFK Jr’s claims that autism and vaccination are linked?
The first paper attempting to link autism to vaccination in 12 children was retracted and Andrew Wakefield admitted to publishing false data. He also stood to make $43 million by selling test kits, an undisclosed financial conflicts of interest, and lost his medical license for serious professional misconduct which included the mistreatment of autistic children.
Wakefield is not the first person who has abused autistic children and taken advantage of their parents that RFK Jr and his Children’s Health Defense have lionized. The Children’s Health Defense has supported and promoted people that have performed unregulated experimentation on autistic children by pushing their “research” as credible when in reality it lacked ethical and medical oversight and in some cases harmed children. Some of the research they promote to this day was done by doctors that lost their medical licenses for harming their patients.
For that alone RFK Jr should have never been given a seat at the table of any serious health organization. Instead of being ashamed, he is charging ahead with the force of our taxpayer dollars behind him hell-bent on proving himself right while our children, medical credibility, and research organizations pay the price.
Here is a link to a free 234 page Immunization Safety Review with a special focus on Autism and Vaccines.
In case you don’t have time to read it, it summarizes the work of over 200 peer reviewed publications showing there is no link between autism and vaccines. Here is a link to a scientifically accurate and plain-language summary of the current research conclusions.
No ‘alternative’ scientific research findings have countered this mountain of evidence with sufficient findings to warrant destroying cancer research to fund RFK Jr’s frivolous self-serving study on the link between vaccines and autism.
RFK Jr is a disgrace and this period is a dark stain on Medical Science in the United States. The only viable path forward is his resignation and the resignation of his equally disingenuous cohort: Makary, Prasad, and Bhattacharya.
Stay tuned as I try to catch up to the deluge of cuts, changes, and restructuring of US Health and Human Services. As always thank you for your support of this publication and subscription. A huge thank you to those who share these posts and support the work directly, helping me keep it free and easily distributed to everyone.
More to come, (unfortunately).
Totally agree. This is another way the Trump administration is putting innocent Americans at unnecessary risk. Disgraceful.