RFK Jr. Learns He Is Not Also Denmark’s HHS Secretary

“This nationwide cohort study did not find evidence supporting an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic, or neurodevelopmental disorders associated with early childhood exposure to aluminum-adsorbed vaccines,” reads the conclusion to the study, which used data from more than 1.2 million children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018. The finding that a scary-sounding thing inside a vaccine didn’t actually hurt kids goes against noted vaccines expert RFK’s entire deal, and so, here we are, with the HHS Secretary calling the study “a deceitful propaganda stunt by the pharmaceutical industry.”

Alas, such sweaty flailing from the aspiring mass murderer seems to be falling on deaf ears. The journal’s editor in chief told Reuters that she sees no reason to retract the study, and the predictable Evil Pharma pitchforks are belied by the fact that the study was actually funded by the Danish government. Independent experts have said that the paper is “solid” and based on “high-quality data.” RFK Jr. does not like independent experts.

Of course, while the HHS Secretary may have run up against the limits of his international influence when it comes to retractions and foreign government scientific funding, just getting his dramatically ignorant bullshit out there is all part of the plan. The more time we all spend listening to him pretend he knows more about vaccines than the entirety of the world’s the scientists, the more some of his denial likely seeps into public consciousness. His rhetoric — the very sort of language published in attacking the Danish study, over which he has no control and very obviously no understanding — only last week resulted in a shooting at the CDC, the grotesque anti-science worldview made flesh and blood.

And aside from taking aim at specific studies, he continues to try and undermine the entire edifice. In an interview with Scripps News published on Monday, he just said the whole thing out loud: “Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy.” Yes it is! That’s what “experts” are! People who have learned things and who, especially when taken collectively, the rest of us who have demonstrably not learned those things can trust!

There are daily — hourly — submissions from the president and across his cabinet for the Infuriating Files. But RFK Jr. is separating himself in terms of sheer unqualified hubris, a scion of century-old unearned American royalty somehow granted power over the entire concept of public health, spewing forth new garbage with a distressing regularity.