RFK Jr's Confirmation Hearing is on Wednesday
What I'm worried about as a chronically ill, neurodivergent woman.
A few months ago, I wrote about how RFK Jr. doesn't care about our health. I wrote it because of my fear that people would fall for his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign and his promise to “end the chronic disease epidemic.” As many of you likely already know, he is anti-vaxx and his main thing is wanting to address the “poison” in our food because he thinks that's why people are chronically ill or neurodivergent. He has also talked about wanting to pause infectious disease research, despite the fact that infectious disease often causes chronic diseases such as Long COVID and ME.
As someone who has been chronically ill since I was a kid, I am used to people thinking they can figure out the cause of my chronic illnesses. I must not be eating right, or exercising enough, or drinking enough water, or doing yoga. These are unfortunately very common views for people to have. I am also neurodivergent, and the “increase in autism diagnosis” isn't because of the “toxins” in our food or food dyes or vaccines. There are probably multiple factors involved, but at least one is because of an increase in awareness. If people like RFK Jr are given any power in this administration, I worry that it will be more common for people to blame chronically ill people for our illnesses, spread misinformation about what's causing our illnesses or what could “cure” us, and spread misinformation about vaccines causing autism or the dangerous homeopathic “treatments” that many autistic children have been subjected to. As someone who already has a chronic illness that can be worsened by COVID (POTS), I also worry about RFK Jr’s potential impact on COVID research, the spread of even more misinformation about COVID, and our already fairly weak COVID/pandemic response.
RFK Jr.’s hearing is on Wednesday. If you live in the US, contact your senators and tell them why they shouldn't confirm him. Tell the people in your lives to do this too. If you see any posts going around about why he's dangerous, repost them.
RFK Jr is unfortunately not the only person we have to worry about when it comes to health under this administration. We have to worry about Dr. Oz as Trump's pick for head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Jay Bhattacharya as NIH director, Marty Makary as head of FDA, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as surgeon general. I'll post any updates I hear about them. To learn more about why they're dangerous, I recommend the Death Panel episodes “The Great Barrington Cabinet Versus the Administrative State” and any episode of theirs on the Great Barrington Declaration, which Jay Bhattacharya played a key role in. Additionally, any of his cabinet picks who engage in climate denialism or make decisions that negatively impact our planet are also dangers to our health, as well as any of his anti-abortion or anti-transgender picks.
Lastly, I recommend following science communicators online right now. They've helped me feel less in the dark about what's going on, and they've also helped me feel like I can sort through health misinformation more easily. And as always, follow disabled people <3