A decade before he became President Trump’s health secretary, the environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on a talk show hosted by Dr. Mehmet Oz to promote his latest book, “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak.”
The book, published in 2014, explored an obscure mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, that was removed from most vaccines, but not flu vaccines, more than two decades ago. Dr. Oz noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had deemed the vaccines that still contained thimerosal “safe and effective” and said they did “not present a public health risk.”
Mr. Kennedy did not buy it. “We found 500 peer-reviewed studies,” he insisted. “Virtually every one of them said that thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin that should not be in vaccines.”
On Thursday, the new members of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, hand-selected by Mr. Kennedy after he fired all 17 members of the previous panel, decided it would no longer recommend annual flu shots that contain it. Thimerosal’s appearance on the committee’s agenda in the first place shocked public health leaders, who have long considered the matter settled.
It is settled. I suspect some of these people know it too. But it’s another way to sow suspicion about vaccines and sell their bogus supplements so it’s all good.
Critics say that in resurrecting an old controversy, Mr. Kennedy could brew mistrust rather than ease it. Numerous studies, including a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine and a 2010 review of the medical literature, have rejected a link between the preservative and autism. Dr. Oz, who now runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted on his 2014 show that any link had been “ultimately discredited.”
But Mr. Kennedy embraced the theory, and traveled the country with Mr. Gladen to promote the film. At the time, Mr. Gladen headed an organization called the World Mercury Project. He joined forces with Mr. Kennedy, who later took over World Mercury Project and turned it into Children’s Health Defense, the advocacy group Mr. Kennedy led until he ran for president.
Kennedy and his cronies are fully politicizing health and science. And, apparently, to the Republicans it’s all just fine because it’s good politics with MAGA and various other assorted morons. That’s all they care about now.