By: Calvin Collins-Knapp
Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services has sent waves throughout political and scientific communities surrounding his controversial anti-vaccine and unorthodox scientific views. While a discussion of RFK Jr. himself is interesting, his nomination reveals how this has coupled with a larger growth of distrust in the scientific community among the American population.
RFK Jr’s initially gained notoriety with his longshot campaign against Trump in the Republican Primary, where his platform was centrally concerned with a general mistrust of the American food and medicine. On the campaign trail and now as a nominee, RFK Jr. has touted his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) rhetoric even more. However, many of his concerns would seem to be more at home among big-government Democrats, who think the FDA should do more to regulate American food production. RFK Jr has identified chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, and others, as the leading cause of death in the US, and science has linked prominent additives such as food dyes and pesticides to many of these health issues. Americans across the political spectrum have long been frustrated over the use of lobbying power to protect corporate interests, and RFK Jr’s has leveraged that to great success, exposing how corporations have lobbied to protect their bottom line at the expense of consumers. Personally, I am sympathetic to many of these concerns. Large corporations have a history of lax morals. Furthermore, Congress has long been hamstrung by lobbyists who leverage campaign funding to ensure their interests are protected, often at the expense of consumers. In these areas RFK Jr. is less controversial. His anger (in this case) at institutional and governmental inaction is largely well founded, and he shares a large portion of America’s frustration over Congress’s inability to effectively monitor and restrict food. However, there are other elements of his platform that unfortunately discredit many of his more main-stream ideas.
RFK Jr. has propagated several vaccines, COVID, and other health conspiracy theories. He has, for instance, claimed numerous times that vaccines cause autism, and that towns should avoid fluorinated their water supply. The latter is a method to passively prevent cavities among the population by adding trace amounts and is recommended by the CDC. Furthermore, he has suggested that people should drink raw, non pasteurized milk, a practice that has all but eliminated food-borne illness since 1864. Wide spreading false information can exploit peoples’ fears, therefore serving a gateway into more harmful ideas (Think Stop the Steal or QAnon.) Many scientists maintain that his policy proposals and kneecapping of health apparatus nationwide could harm the overall health of the nation. Many of his extreme ideas negate the credibility he may have had over his other, more mainstream, ideals, which hurts the chances of actual change.
However, the implications of these conspiracy theories on the attitude of the nation are also troubling. The easiness with which mistrust in the scientific body of information spirals into unfounded pseudoscience reveals a troubling reality. There are several psychological factors that give humans a dispensation to believe falsehoods, namely the novelty and easiness of lies. Often, the complexity behind scientific perspectives can serve as a limitation to understanding and therefore acceptance. Furthermore, the often repeated us-versus-them rhetoric against the scientific establishment plays into the tribalistic tendencies of humans. There is also a large amount of curiosity in these scientific concepts. It is very easy to ask oneself: ‘How do vaccines work?’ and without proper scientific communication, it can be very easy to fall prey to false news about their dangers. These doubts and questions are then capitalized on by the structure of the internet. There is a large echo chamber effect on many online platforms, which capitalizes on psychological l factors such as cognitive bias and uncertainty. This reveals a fundamental problem in how scientific communication works in the US. People are often asked to blindly accept science and medicine, and questions, even curious, well-intentioned questions, are often shut down. This outright derision of curiosity in the scientific process is extremely counterproductive, as it feeds into conspiracy theories’ narrative of a pretentious and close-minded scientific establishment.
There is a way to combat this trend, however. Scientific communication needs to change in the US, with an emphasis on curiosity and explanation of scientific explanation. Furthermore, questions about the sometimes-obscure trappings of public health policy (Why do we put fluorine in our drinking water?) must be approached with an open mind and deserve answers that do not patronize. It is better to combat conspiracy with truth and compassion than haughtiness and accusations. The firestorm around RFK Jr. reveals a troubling trend in American scientific understanding; what were once fringe conspiracies are now becoming mainstream and cannot go ignored any longer.
Bibliography
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