Caffeinated Politics

When I hear Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name, a basic thought instantly comes to mind about what he is doing as Secretary of Health and Human Services. He purposely sows disinformation, creating public confusion that then undermines evidence‑based policymaking.

His long, ridiculous record of promoting lies about vaccines, outrageous claims repeatedly debunked by scientists, medical associations, and federal health agencies, has already had measurable consequences for public health. As major news outlets have documented, Kennedy has spent years spreading the baseless assertion that vaccines cause autism, a claim disproven by extensive research across multiple countries. During the COVID pandemic, he amplified conspiracy theories about mRNA vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific consensus on their safety and effectiveness.

This week, we became aware of more chicanery from Kennedy’s HHS.

Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been blocked from publishing a scientifically vetted study finding significant health benefits from this season’s COVID-19 vaccines, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

The move adds to longstanding concern among health experts that chaos and political interference under Kennedy—a staunch anti-vaccine activist who has long falsely maligned COVID-19 vaccines—is deeply undermining science at federal agencies and beyond.

CDC scientists and insiders told the Post that the COVID-19 vaccine study went through the agency’s standard scientific review process and was slated for publication on March 19 in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). But acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya blocked the scheduled publication and is holding the study, claiming he has concerns about its methodology.

According to a summary the Post obtained, the study concluded that between September and December of last year, healthy adults vaccinated with a 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine saw the risk of emergency department or urgent care visits cut by 50 percent, and the risk of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations cut by 55 percent, compared with healthy adults who did not get this season’s shot.

I have contended for the past year that Kennedy’s influence has the potential to distort the functioning of HHS and will land a most dangerous blow to scientific integrity. When this absurd political figure with no background in medicine or science repeatedly attacks scientific data, it becomes harder for the public to distinguish fact from fiction, and harder for policymakers to act on reliable data rather than conspiracy‑driven noise.

He is a moronic joke. He dismisses peer‑reviewed research, expert consensus, and decades of epidemiological evidence for his cultish views. The outcome for the nation is a political environment in which facts are optional, and expertise is treated as suspect. What many fear, and rightly so, is the weakening of collective resilience during crises. We saw how the mouth breathers cast their shallow-end-of-the-pool narratives foolishly about during the COVID pandemic.

This buffoon once called COVID vaccines the deadliest vaccine ever made. He has fired vaccine advisory committees, replaced members with vaccine skeptics, and now his underlings are stopping peer-reviewed research from seeing daylight.

The stakes are high. I often write in these columns why a functioning democracy depends on a shared foundation of facts. If it were left to the whims of Kennedy, we would have a political landscape in which it would be nigh impossible to build consensus around policies that protect the public’s health. Because he would only advance debunked conspiracy theories.