Is Bobby Kennedy Jr’s a threat to Public Health?

I have tried really hard not to fall down rabbit-holes when it comes to science and medicine in case I resurface in a land of; crackpots, antivaxxers and delusional conspiracy theorists. I should be able to make some sense of the data provided on medicines but it has been a struggle and people such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr has not been very helpful in this pursuit.

RFK Jr, has just been nominated by President Elect Trump’s nomination as head of Health in the US with a command to Go wild on Health, Go Wild on Vaccines, Go wild on Medicines Go Wild on Food. This has brought a sharp intake of breath from more sensible medical types who have the Nation’s Health and its best interests at heart.

Bobby is known for strange and strong views on health. He has falsely linked autism and vaccines, called the Covid vaccines the deadliest vaccines ever made, compared antidepressants to mass shootings and incorrectly stated there was no link with AIDS and HIV.

It’s clear the incoming President is sticking two prominent fingers, on both hands, up to the US healthcare establishment. Robert, if he does get the appointment and that’s not at all certain, will stir things up but is he really dangerous to the Nation’s health?

Robert wrote a controversial book; The Real Anthony Fauci; Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, published in late 2021 which became an instant best seller in the US. In this large and impressive tome he makes the case that the re-purposing of drugs in the pandemic was deliberately blocked by Anthony Fauci because it allowed Fauci to seek and obtain an emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the drug remdesivir and new vaccines based on the novel mRNA technology in which Fauci, according to Kennedy, had a considerable vested interest.

Had ivermectin, or other repurposed drug, proved effective in reducing the impact of the disease; reducing hospitalisations, for example, then this non-patented medicine would have become widely used but more significantly from Kennedy’s point of view, this would have stopped an emergency use application for both remdesivir and vaccines as there would have been an effective remedy and therefore no urgent public health need. Remdesivir and vaccines would then be required to go through the normal rigorous assessment required by regulators for any new drugs and perhaps, just perhaps, when all the data was known it might have been less of a rosy picture. This might not have been such a bad thing.

Kennedy is a tort lawyer and his book reflects his strength in pleading in the legal forum not in a scientific forum. He has been accused of lacking “intellectual modesty” by his critics and Antony Fuci has said he is “a very paranoid and disturbed person”. That said Anthony Fauci and others are not well known for their intellectual modesty.

Kennedy uses and cites references not for their scientific rigour but because they suit his case. For example, when discussing ivermectin – an old drug he wants repurposed – he describes one “powerful” study as showing a “dramatic” effect. The study he cited is a very small unblinded trail that involved a comparison of 12 patients in an ivermectin arm and 12 patients in a placebo arm. The power of this study to add anything to scientific understanding is just laughable.

Kennedy also cited a study to prove his claim of the significant toxicity of vaccines but failed to quote a section of the paper that stated that vaccines are: 90-99% effective against hospitalisation, 90-95% effective against mortality and 65%-99% effective against symptomatic disease: a good risk/benefit ratio.

His reference sections always seem impressive but on closer inspection are found to contain many gossip items and TV channel discussions making unscientific and unsubstantiated claims that fits the case he is trying to make. Nontheless his arguments are pursuasive and seductive almost.

To have a near fatal trip into Bobby Kennedy Jr’s rabbit-holes is to appreciate and understand that scientific studies give us an understanding of the real world but need careful interpretation. Its too easy to bamboozle and use slight-of-hand statistics that manipulate even the well-informed.

Much is yet to be uncovered about the pandemic we have just come through. All will eventually be known as more data and better information becomes available. Vaccines for Covid19 are unlikely to prove as effective as was claimed when they were licensed using an emergency use authorisation (EUA); they certainly will have side-effects. The drug remdesivir licensed with a EUA is well just not very effective.

Reading Kennedy’s book, I learned the danger of expecting black and white answers from science. This is what Kennedy does and he is convincing. Science has to deal with uncertainty and the Truth is not easily arrived at in one or two, even myriad well-designed studies. He might turn out to be right on a few things.

In the main Pfizer covid19 vaccine trial, all subjects were vaccinated immediately after the study ended. This means that it is not possible using this cohort to study potential long-term side-effects of the vaccine. Ethically this decision was dubious even when manufactures claimed it was unethical not to vaccinate the control group. But a non-vaccinated cohort was the only way to look for unusual side-effects given mRNA technology is new and largely untested. The absence of that data is indeed cause for concern but not justification to jump to conclusions as RFK Jr did.

Is he a threat to public health in the US. I don’t think so. If he gets appointed, and it’s a big if, I think he will challenge the over-medicalisation of US society and I think that will be a very good thing indeed. That said there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure his more crack-pot ideas, getting fluoride out of drinking water, never see the light of day.

I am a pharmacist in Belfast.