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Speaker 1: This week we're doing a slightly different kind of episode.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's a rumor, and I don't know if

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Speaker 2: it's so or not that Cuba they don't have tailan

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Speaker 2: because they don't have the money to fit tile in

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Speaker 2: all and they have virtually no autism.

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Speaker 3: Okay, tell me about that one.

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Speaker 2: And there are other parts of the world where they

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Speaker 2: don't have tailan, oh, where they don't have autism. That

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Speaker 2: tells you a lot. So I'd like to ask Bobby

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Speaker 2: to come up and say a few words. I hope

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Speaker 2: I didn't ruin his day, but that's the way I feel.

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Speaker 2: I've been very strong on the subject for a long time.

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Speaker 4: Today, the FDA will issue physicians notice about the risk

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Speaker 4: of a ceda metaphine during pregnancy and begin the process

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Speaker 4: to initiate a safety label change. AHHS will launch a

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Speaker 4: nationwide public service campaign to in foreign families and protect

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Speaker 4: public health. FDA are also recognized that ceda metaphine is

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Speaker 4: often the only tool for fevers in pain in pregnancy,

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Speaker 4: as other alternatives have well documented adverse facts.

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Speaker 3: I'm George Severis, I'm Lyra Smith, and this is United

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Speaker 3: States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with

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Speaker 3: the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect

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Speaker 3: of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking about

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Speaker 3: RFK Junior and the latest Health Department claims about tailanol.

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Speaker 1: We haven't really covered RFK Junior yet. Bobby Kennedy's son. Currently,

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Speaker 1: he's in the Trump administration. He's the Secretary of Health

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Speaker 1: and Human Services, where he oversees the CDC, the FDA,

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Speaker 1: and a variety of other health related agencies and offices.

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Speaker 3: And since we started working on this show, he has

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Speaker 3: been the Kennedy most consistently in the news, so he's

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Speaker 3: pretty much the elephant in the room during any conversation

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Speaker 3: we have about the Kennedy family over the last few years.

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Speaker 1: Last week the long awaited announcement of his findings after

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Speaker 1: he pledged to find the cause of autism by September.

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Speaker 1: Here's our FK Junior and President Trump this past April.

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Speaker 5: We are going to know by September. We've launched a

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Speaker 5: massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds

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Speaker 5: of scientists from around the world. By September, we will

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Speaker 5: know what has caused as an epidemic and will be

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Speaker 5: able to elimit those exposures.

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Speaker 6: So you think you're gonna have a pretty good idea,

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Speaker 6: we will know by September there will be no bigger

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Speaker 6: news conference and then so that's it if you can

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Speaker 6: come up with that answer where you stop taking something,

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Speaker 6: you stop eating something, or maybe it's a shot, but

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Speaker 6: something's causing it.

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Speaker 1: So not only the answer, but Trump is already promoting

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Speaker 1: the big press conference for the announcement.

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Speaker 3: So how exactly did we end up here? Rfk Junior

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Speaker 3: spent his early career as an environmental lawyer, but he

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Speaker 3: has been a famous face in the anti vaxx movement

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Speaker 3: since the mid two thousands. It all started when his

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Speaker 3: son Connor, had severe enophylaxis from a peanut allergy, and

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Speaker 3: through Kennedy's own research, he speculated about a correlation between

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Speaker 3: the CDC's expanded vaccine schedule and the rise in allergies, autism, ADHD,

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Speaker 3: and other health issues. He has spent the last two

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Speaker 3: decades spreading the message that vaccines are one of the

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Speaker 3: root causes of the continued rise in the numbers of

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Speaker 3: autism diagnoses.

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Speaker 1: In reality, two big categoric factors contribute to the rise

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Speaker 1: in autism cases in two thousand and seven, autism screening

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Speaker 1: was recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics as part

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Speaker 1: of regular checkups for children between eighteen to twenty four months.

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Speaker 1: Before then, it was only if the doctor decided to

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Speaker 1: do so. And then in twenty thirteen, the fifth edition

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Speaker 1: of the DSM combined four conditions autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder,

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Speaker 1: childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder into one autism

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Speaker 1: spectrum disorder. These changes had a huge impact on the numbers,

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Speaker 1: and just to note, we are constantly learning new information

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Speaker 1: about the autism.

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Speaker 3: Spectrum, but you wouldn't know that from listening to RFK Junior,

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Speaker 3: whose views have been very consistent for years. Earlier this year,

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Speaker 3: RFK Junior falsely described the latest cases as severe. In reality,

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Speaker 3: the majority of recent diagnoses are described as mild, and

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Speaker 3: in fact, the number of quote unquote profound cases has

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Speaker 3: largely stayed the same.

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Speaker 1: Today, we have Julie Robner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF

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Speaker 1: News and hosts of the podcast What the Health. She's

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Speaker 1: here to unpack RFK Junior's announcement and walk us through

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Speaker 1: his impact as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

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Speaker 3: Julie, Welcome to the United States of Kennedy. Before we

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Speaker 3: get into it, I unfortunately will have to have you

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Speaker 3: repeat everything you just told us off air, which is

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Speaker 3: that you actually have. Other than having the great fortune

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Speaker 3: of covering RFK Junior's current tenure in the drub administration,

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Speaker 3: you have various other Kennedy connections as well that are

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Speaker 3: relevant of the podcast I do.

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Speaker 7: I go back my entire life pretty much with the Kennedys.

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Speaker 7: The assassination of John F. Kennedy is the first news

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Speaker 7: event that I remember.

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Speaker 1: I was five.

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Speaker 7: My dad actually worked in Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign.

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Speaker 7: I also grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, which is not

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Speaker 7: too far from where the Shrivers lived, so I have

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Speaker 7: been over to their former little compound which is no

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Speaker 7: longer there anymore, and met the Shriver kids. And then,

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Speaker 7: of course I covered Capitol Hill for forty years, including

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Speaker 7: an awful lot of time spent with Ted Kennedy at

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Speaker 7: this senator. In fact, my favorite ever memories is after

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Speaker 7: they finished a passing Hippa in nineteen ninety six, he

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Speaker 7: turned to me after the parting press conference and he said,

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Speaker 7: whatever will you do with your time now that we're done,

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Speaker 7: and I said, Senator, I'm sure you'll think of something.

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Speaker 7: Maybe the only snappy comeback I've ever had in my

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Speaker 7: entire life.

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Speaker 1: Very proud of that. It's so funny Kennedy's pop up

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Speaker 1: everyone where they pop up in so many conversations where

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Speaker 1: I'm not expecting them to come up, so he gets

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Speaker 1: very personal and while it's also at the core of

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Speaker 1: like you said, it's a hippa, a huge monumental pieces

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Speaker 1: of American history and politics.

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Speaker 7: My best claim to fame about the Kennedys is that

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Speaker 7: Senator Kennedy's dog, Splash knew me and used to come

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Speaker 7: up to me at press conferences and drop his very

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Speaker 7: disgusting tennis ball at my feet because he knew that

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Speaker 7: I was a dog person. So I guess the Kennedy

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Speaker 7: I was closest to with Splash.

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Speaker 1: Well, there we go.

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Speaker 3: Since we have you here, and since you have an

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Speaker 3: interest in the Kennedy's, I'm wondering before RFK Junior, what

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Speaker 3: was the legacy that other Kennedys had, specifically in the

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Speaker 3: health sector, as politicians and as people in government.

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Speaker 7: Oh, my goodness, so many. If not for John F. Kennedy,

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Speaker 7: we wouldn't have medicare. That was pushed over the finish

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Speaker 7: line by Lyndon Johnson, but it was pushed in the

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Speaker 7: campaign by John F. Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: Robert F.

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Speaker 7: Kennedy was obviously a huge champion for people in poverty

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Speaker 7: and that was a big part of his campaign. Ted

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Speaker 7: Kennedy books have been written about all of the things

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Speaker 7: that he did for healthcare. His achievements as the chairman

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Speaker 7: of what became the Health, Education, Labor and Pendants Committee

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Speaker 7: are legendary. His son, Patrick Kennedy helped push the legislation

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Speaker 7: to require parody in mental health and physical health. That

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Speaker 7: was a huge effort. We've had several Kennedys. We had

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Speaker 7: Kathleen Kennedy townson O. R. FK Junior, sister who was

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Speaker 7: the Lieutenant governor of Maryland where I live. You know

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Speaker 7: any number of Kennedys now who've been in Congress, mostly

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Speaker 7: in the House, and health has been sort of a

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Speaker 7: through line I think for all of the Kennedys who've

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Speaker 7: been in public office.

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Speaker 3: So that brings us to RFK Junior. Then obviously he

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Speaker 3: breaks from the family tradition in many ways. Can you

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Speaker 3: sort of give us a brief history of his involvement

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Speaker 3: in the health sector and in the anti vax movement.

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Speaker 3: Because he's obviously not a doctor by training, he sort

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Speaker 3: of came into it via his own family experiences and

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Speaker 3: quote unquote doing his own research. So what is his

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Speaker 3: history and health.

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Speaker 7: Well, he's a lawyer, and he came into it as

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Speaker 7: a lawyer, and he was a very prominent environmental lawyer

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Speaker 7: in the nineties, which is where I think he gets

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Speaker 7: his interest in pesticides and food additives and things that

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Speaker 7: are more environmental than health related. And I think in

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Speaker 7: the early two thousands someone basically brought him concerns about

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Speaker 7: the problems with vaccines and he just got into it.

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Speaker 7: So since the early two thousands, he's been sort of

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Speaker 7: one of the prominent anti vaccine crusaders. He's been involved

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Speaker 7: in a number of lawsuits, He's made a lot of money,

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Speaker 7: and he's headed this organization called Children's Health Defense, from

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Speaker 7: which he's also made a lot of money. He was

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Speaker 7: very active in fighting the COVID vaccine mandates.

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Speaker 1: He's got a big.

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Speaker 7: Lawsuit challenging Gardisle the anti cancer vaccine. So it's been

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Speaker 7: sort of his crusade really for the last twenty some years.

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Speaker 1: When you say he's made a lot of money, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: even settlements or raising money, No, in litigation.

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Speaker 7: I mean he's made a lot of money in being

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Speaker 7: a lawyer and suing some of these companies. He's also

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Speaker 7: was paid a lot of money from Children's Health Defense.

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Speaker 7: So he's done very well basically from his work as

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Speaker 7: an anti vaccine crusader.

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Speaker 3: And did he sort of become a leader in an

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Speaker 3: existing movement or was he truly behind it as the

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Speaker 3: you know, did he, for lack of a better term,

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Speaker 3: popularize it.

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Speaker 1: I think he helped popularize it.

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Speaker 7: I mean I've been covering the anti vax movement since

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Speaker 7: the mid nineteen nineties, and it's interesting that Kennedy as

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Speaker 7: a Kennedy and everyone would think as a Democrat, the

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Speaker 7: anti vaxers falling to the sort of far left and

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Speaker 7: far right. They're sort of the far left I call

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Speaker 7: the crunchy granola types. I mean that we would see

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Speaker 7: in the Pacific Northwestern in California who just didn't want

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Speaker 7: to put artificial anything into their children. And then also

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Speaker 7: the sort of very strict individualists, if you will, who

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Speaker 7: say you the government aren't going to tell me.

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Speaker 1: What to do.

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Speaker 7: So those have been sort of the two strands of

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Speaker 7: the anti vaxx movement, all along with the name Kennedy.

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Speaker 7: And he was already fairly prominent as an environmental lawyer.

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Speaker 7: It was easy for him to take this movement and

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Speaker 7: make it even bigger.

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Speaker 3: We're going to take a short break, stay with us,

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Speaker 3: and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: So what changes have you seen since he took over

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Speaker 1: at the AHHS.

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Speaker 7: Well, I spent a little time making a list because

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Speaker 7: I wanted to remind myself of all the things that

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Speaker 7: have happened in the last eight months, and there are

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Speaker 7: a lot of them, starting with downplaying the measles outbreak

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Speaker 7: in Texas. This is the largest measles outbreak we've seen

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Speaker 7: in the United States in a couple of decades at least.

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Speaker 7: And there are a lot of doctors who found his

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Speaker 7: behavior cringeworthy to use a phrase that they used, you know,

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Speaker 7: basically doubting the vaccines and talking about untested and unproven

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Speaker 7: treatments for measles, which can cause very serious complications and

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Speaker 7: does cause very serious complications. As Secretary, he cut off

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Speaker 7: funding for enormous swaths of research.

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Speaker 1: Part of that was.

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Speaker 7: The administration wide cutting off funding to universities because of

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Speaker 7: their DEI policies. Some of it was about the research

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Speaker 7: in general. He canceled five hundred million dollars in research

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Speaker 7: on mRNA vaccines that was course the foundation for the

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Speaker 7: COVID vaccine. Scientists worried that it would also be the

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Speaker 7: foundation for a vaccine that we would need to fight

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Speaker 7: a future pandemic because it is much quicker to make

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Speaker 7: vaccines using the mRNA process, and also it's being looked

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Speaker 7: at as possibility to develop a canter vaccine, so that

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Speaker 7: was very upsetting to a lot of scientists. He promised

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Speaker 7: the current chairman of the Senate Help Committee, Bill Cassidy,

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Speaker 7: who is a doctor, that he would not mess with

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Speaker 7: the childhood vaccine schedule. He has indeed messed with the

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Speaker 7: childhood vaccine schedule. He fired all of the members of

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Speaker 7: the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replaced them with

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Speaker 7: vaccine doubters and skeptics and anti vax people. They met

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Speaker 7: for the first time just last week and made not huge,

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Speaker 7: but some major changes to vaccine recommendations that have created

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Speaker 7: more confusion, I think than anything else they have. Both

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Speaker 7: he as Secretary and then the rest of the administration

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Speaker 7: have basically cut the staffing of the Department of Health

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Speaker 7: and Human Services from about eighty thousand people to about

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Speaker 7: sixty thousand people through layoffs and early retirements, and basically

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Speaker 7: he's been trying to clean house. In August, he fired

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Speaker 7: his own handpicked head of the Senators for Disease Control

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Speaker 7: and Prevention because she testified to Congress that he told

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Speaker 7: her that she needed to approve in advance whatever recommendations

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Speaker 7: the Advisory Committee on Ammunization Practices would make her being

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Speaker 7: able to review the science first. She refused to do that,

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Speaker 7: she was eventually fired, and most of the senior scientific

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Speaker 7: staff at the CDC then resigned after she was fired.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course this.

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Speaker 7: Week he was part of this big White House announcement

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Speaker 7: about autism where the President said, basically without offering any

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Speaker 7: scientific evidence, that taking tail and all in pregnancy is

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Speaker 7: a cause of autism, as well as President casts a

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Speaker 7: lot of doubt on vaccines. So it's been busy eight

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Speaker 7: months for everybody who covers the Department of Health and

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Speaker 7: Human Services.

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Speaker 3: As with so much Trump related stuff. Part of the

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Speaker 3: issue is this bombarding of information so that you just

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Speaker 3: become confused and can't really tell what is a big

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Speaker 3: deal and what's not. What is simply an announcement that

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Speaker 3: has no actual bearing in our day to day lias

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Speaker 3: versus what is a policy change for the average person.

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Speaker 3: That just becomes very confusing. So along those lines, could

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Speaker 3: you maybe just walk us through this specific announcement, this

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Speaker 3: latest announcement which I don't know if you saw this

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Speaker 3: image that was flirting around, it was just a giant

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Speaker 3: Fox News image that just said autism announcement, which almost

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Speaker 3: is so decontextualized to become like comical. So what was

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Speaker 3: the big autism announcement?

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Speaker 7: Well, of course the big autism announcement. This was they

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Speaker 7: had promised the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F.

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Speaker 7: Kennedy Junior and President Trump had promised that by September,

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Speaker 7: and it is now the end of September, they would

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Speaker 7: unveil the cause of autism and a treatment for autism,

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Speaker 7: which everyone who's been studying autism for decades says said

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Speaker 7: was unrealistic, if you will, but they plowed ahead anyway,

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Speaker 7: and so basically, you know, the President said that there's

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Speaker 7: a causal relationship between taking tail and all a cidamnifin

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Speaker 7: the generic. Most people take the generics true causal relationship

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Speaker 7: between cedamnifin and autism if it's taken in pregnancy. Even

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Speaker 7: the fact sheet that was put out the same day

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Speaker 7: by the Food and Drug Administration said there's no causal

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Speaker 7: relationship identified. Yet there's an association that women who took

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Speaker 7: thailanol and pregnancy are more likely to have children who

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Speaker 7: are autistic. But as many doctors point out, one of

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Speaker 7: the reasons you take tailan alan pregnancy is for a fever,

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Speaker 7: and one of the risk factors for autism is fever,

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Speaker 7: so it may well be the fever and not the

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Speaker 7: tilanol that causes it. There is a huge study out

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Speaker 7: of Scandinavia that looked at a couple of million moms

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Speaker 7: and babies and basically did not find a cause of relationship.

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Speaker 7: There was no new science that was unveiled in this

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Speaker 7: big announcement. The other part of this announcement was a

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Speaker 7: possible treatment, basically a drug that's phylinic acid, a vitamin

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Speaker 7: B nine, which is already prescribed to most pregnant women

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Speaker 7: because there's concern I see nodding going on, women do

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Speaker 7: take fullic acid in pregnancy. Anyway, there have been some

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Speaker 7: very small studies that suggest that perhaps there is promise

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Speaker 7: for some autistic children with this drug, but again the

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Speaker 7: work is very preliminary. The researchers who were doing the

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Speaker 7: work are worried. They don't want to overpromise. They were

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Speaker 7: very unhappy that basically the President said we have found

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Speaker 7: the treatment and this is it, because that is clearly

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Speaker 7: not the case yet could it be possibly? Much more

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Speaker 7: research needs to be done. So I can say that

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Speaker 7: I've been covering healthcare almost forty years now, I have

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Speaker 7: never seen a press conference like that, And I watched

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Speaker 7: all the President Trump's press conferences during COVID when he

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Speaker 7: talked about bleach and all kinds of things. This was

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Speaker 7: something new entirely.

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Speaker 1: Yet the treatment aspect in this announcement also in April,

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Speaker 1: when they announced and said, you know, we're going to

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Speaker 1: have these answers in September almost felt like something Trump

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Speaker 1: threw in at the end our CAA junior seemed to

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Speaker 1: be coming in and he given himself the deadline of September,

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Speaker 1: which do you know where that came from? Or is

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Speaker 1: that a mystery?

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Speaker 7: I don't know where the September came from. Obviously, you know,

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Speaker 7: autism is something and autism's relationship to vaccines is something

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Speaker 7: that Robert F.

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Speaker 1: Kennedy Junior has.

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Speaker 7: Been talking about for years and years and years. And

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Speaker 7: President Trump also has a history with autism. He has

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Speaker 7: sort of danced around the vaccine skepticism area for a while.

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Speaker 7: But I think it probably wasn't that hard for Secretary

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Speaker 7: Kennedy to convince the President to go further than perhaps

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Speaker 7: the science would dictate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was nodding along so much because this has

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Speaker 1: just brought me back to when I was pregnant and

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Speaker 1: you are bombarded with warnings and new rules and things

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Speaker 1: you'd never heard of before. And it's a shocking list

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Speaker 1: of things that you cannot have or you're warned against.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why the list is so is because

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Speaker 1: they don't have the information on a lot of these items.

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Speaker 1: We can't do test on pregnant women.

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Speaker 7: Right, It's unethical to test a lot of these things,

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Speaker 7: So you get lots of these things that this has

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Speaker 7: not been tested in pregnant women. It is an ethical quandary.

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Speaker 1: So I guess it just brings me to Trump's phrasing

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Speaker 1: of saying just don't take it, tough it out. What

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Speaker 1: is the danger there in telling pregnant women tough it

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Speaker 1: out when it comes to avoiding thailandol.

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Speaker 7: Well, as I said earlier, it may be that taking

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Speaker 7: the tilanol is safer than what it is that you're

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Speaker 7: toughing out, particularly.

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Speaker 1: If you have a high fever.

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Speaker 7: I mean, even thailand All says if you're pregnant, consult

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Speaker 7: with your doctor. Problem is a lot of people don't

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Speaker 7: have doctors, even pregnant women don't have doctors. It's hard

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Speaker 7: to get a hold of your doctor. For the most part.

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Speaker 7: It's kind of casting off your responsibility as a public official,

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Speaker 7: as a public health official, to say just talk to

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Speaker 7: your doctor, because that's not always doable, and the idea

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Speaker 7: of public health is to sort of do the best

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Speaker 7: we can for the most we can. And I've heard

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Speaker 7: an enormous backlash this week, you know, from the administration

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Speaker 7: saying if anything bad happens, it's your fault. That this

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Speaker 7: is all individual. This is true of vaccines and of

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Speaker 7: the autism announcement, that basically it's up to you to

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Speaker 7: do your own research and make your own decisions. And

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Speaker 7: that's a real concern. It's a real concern to doctors

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Speaker 7: who've spent an awful lot of time talking about things

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Speaker 7: called shared decision making, getting experts to help weigh the

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Speaker 7: risks and the benefits. I think I said on our

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Speaker 7: podcast this week, you know, we've gone from over trusting

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Speaker 7: expertise to under trusting it and putting all the load

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Speaker 7: on individuals. And you shouldn't get your medical advice from

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Speaker 7: TikTok or from elected officials who don't have degrees. But

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Speaker 7: it's hard to find that middle part. And I think

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Speaker 7: what a lot of these things have done is just

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Speaker 7: left people confused and frightened, in many cases, uncertain what

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Speaker 7: to do.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the declining trust in health institutions more

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Speaker 3: broadly is one of the bigger stories here, and I

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Speaker 3: want to talk a little more about that, but before

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Speaker 3: I do, just to kind of wrap up on the

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Speaker 3: announcement itself. As you mentioned, Tailand already warns that, of course,

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Speaker 3: you should not be taking sixteen thailand all a day.

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Speaker 3: If you are, or if you even if you're not pregnant,

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Speaker 3: it is still something you are putting in your body. Already,

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Speaker 3: you should be consulting your doctor if you're pregnant and

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Speaker 3: taking it, and this announcement is just basically reiterating that,

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Speaker 3: but a more extreme version of it. I mean, when

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Speaker 3: I think about the possible horrible announcements that they can make,

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Speaker 3: I mean, get on TV and say we're banning vaccines

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Speaker 3: across the board or something like. It's as the dust

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Speaker 3: has settled, I'm like, well, maybe when the grand scheme

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Speaker 3: of things, saying that Thailand all is dangerous is one

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Speaker 3: of the least harmful things that this administration has said.

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Speaker 3: So what, in your opinion is the actual material impact

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Speaker 3: of an announcement like this, Like, take making the theatrics aside,

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Speaker 3: just the craziness and weirdness of watching it aside. This

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Speaker 3: isn't some big policy change. It's basically a press conference

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Speaker 3: that is meant to relay a sensibility almost Well.

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Speaker 7: I think you said it at the beginning of your question,

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Speaker 7: which is that this is part of the destruction of

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Speaker 7: trust in the medical community, in public health and expertise

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Speaker 7: in general. That's a theme of this administration.

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Speaker 3: Robert F.

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Speaker 7: Kennedy Junior has been very very in front about saying,

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Speaker 7: you know, CDC is hurting people. The scientists don't know

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Speaker 7: what they're talking about. They all have conflicts of interest.

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Speaker 7: I mean, we've been hearing all of this and basically

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Speaker 7: what it's doing is leaving people uncertain where to turn

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Speaker 7: to resolve difficult issues in their lives and to resolve issues.

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Speaker 7: And frankly, experts have studied and they do know some

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Speaker 7: things about tailan all is not all that safe. It

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Speaker 7: can destroy your liver if you take too much of it,

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Speaker 7: or if you take them, don't take tailand all if

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Speaker 7: you're drinking tailan all alcohol don't go well together. Just

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Speaker 7: because something is over the counter doesn't mean it's super safe.

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Speaker 7: We know aspirin is not that safe either. All of

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Speaker 7: these medications, as you say, you're putting something in your body,

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Speaker 7: and they all have risks and benefits. The trick is

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Speaker 7: to take it only when the benefit outraighs the risk.

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Speaker 7: The confusion that I think is being sewn here and

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Speaker 7: the mistrust in scientific knowledge and medical knowledge I think

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Speaker 7: is really what this is.

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Speaker 1: Part and parcel of this is one of the most

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Speaker 1: vulnerable groups for this type of confusion. I used to say,

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Speaker 1: getting pregnant can be a gateway drug to so many

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Speaker 1: different medical conspiracies and health conspiracies because it just unlocks

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Speaker 1: this whole new level of concern and lack of information

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Speaker 1: while also throwing a lot of blame and guilt on

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Speaker 1: the individual, Like you were saying, and.

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Speaker 7: When you have the baby, it doesn't get any better.

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Speaker 7: Both pregnant women and parents of infants and toddlers are

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Speaker 7: I think, extremely vulnerable and extremely vulnerable too, as you say,

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Speaker 7: being bombarded with information and uncertain what information to trust.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

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Speaker 1: this break, and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to take us back to the autism spectrum

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Speaker 3: question because all of this is part of both for

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Speaker 3: RFK Junior and for as you said, large swaths of

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Speaker 3: both the right and the left, is part of an

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Speaker 3: obsession with the so called rise in autism cases. Can

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Speaker 3: you tell us a little bit about the panic surrounding

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Speaker 3: that and how the actual medical community itself talks about it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: Well, the reason for the rise in autism is not

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Speaker 7: so much because there is more autism. It's because there

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Speaker 7: are more things that are now being counted as autism

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Speaker 7: and more of it is being discovered. It used to

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Speaker 7: be we thought of autistic people as those who were

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Speaker 7: basically nonverbal and unable to take care of themselves. And now,

439
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 7: of course we know that autism is caused by dozens

440
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 7: of different things, most of them genetics, some of them environmental,

441
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:26,919
Speaker 7: and that it is a spectrum that we call it

442
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 7: autism spectrum disorder, and that people who are higher up

443
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 7: on the spectrum are much higher functioning if you do

444
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 7: diagnose it early. There are things behavioral and other things

445
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 7: that you can do to help those children achieve even

446
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,199
Speaker 7: more self sufficiency. There are lots of autistic people who

447
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 7: are doing amazing things. One of the things about autism

448
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 7: is that often you end up with prodigies. They end

449
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 7: up being math geniuses or music geniuses, or some other

450
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 7: kind of genius. That is not uncommon in the world

451
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 7: of autism spectrum disorder. So it is some that is

452
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 7: much more recognized, and that's why we're seeing the big increase.

453
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 7: It's probably not because of Thailand all or childhood vaccines.

454
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 7: One of the things we know is that it's not

455
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 7: because of timerisol, the mercury based vaccine preservative that is

456
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 7: no longer in vaccines and hasn't been for twenty years.

457
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 7: And yet we still see that the number of cases

458
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 7: of autism being diagnosed go up because we're recognizing it

459
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 7: more and because we're applying it to more types of neurodivergence.

460
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 3: And if you were to ask RFK Junior, why do

461
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 3: you think there has been a rise in autism cases?

462
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 3: What would he say?

463
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 7: He's been very firm that he thinks it's environmental, that

464
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 7: he thinks it's from I think vaccines and tilan all

465
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 7: and pesticides and ultra processed food. Yeah, various toxins. He's

466
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 7: very big on various toxins.

467
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: Something that I think is interesting about the anti VAXX

468
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 3: movement is the relationship between the people involved in the

469
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 3: movement and the media. I was actually thinking today as

470
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 3: I was reading about this topic that the first time

471
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 3: I ever heard of the anti vax movement was from

472
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 3: Jenny McCarthy, the actress and model on Chelsea Lately, Chelsea

473
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 3: Handler's old talk show. And I was young and had

474
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 3: never considered that there was or was not a relationship

475
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,200
Speaker 3: between vaccines and autism. And she was promoting some kind

476
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 3: of book or promoting some sort of nonprofit or something,

477
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 3: and she was very articulate, like she was really forming

478
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 3: complete sentences that made sense to someone that did not

479
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 3: have scientific expertise, and it really didn't occur to me

480
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 3: to question it until I probably talked about it with

481
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 3: my parents where I became older and started doing research

482
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 3: or something. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I had

483
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 3: never considered that. So I'm wondering if you can talk

484
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 3: a little bit about the success of the pr campaign

485
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, around the anti vax movement.

486
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jennie McCarthy is such a good example. I mean,

487
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 7: it's somebody with a big megaphone. That's when we were

488
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 7: still talking about mercury preservatives and vaccines mostly, but same

489
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 7: thing RFK Junior. You know, you get the Kennedy name

490
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 7: and immediately people sit up and take notice. So whatever

491
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,199
Speaker 7: it is that he was saying, people are going to

492
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 7: pay attention to, and that has helped, I think blossom

493
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 7: the anti VAXX movement and that this is true. I

494
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 7: mean I get with alf reporter, constant emails and press

495
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 7: releases and requests of people who are trying to get

496
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 7: visibility for their particular disease or ailment or whatever. I

497
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 7: could if I wanted to do nothing but write about

498
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 7: this or that or the other, because people want more

499
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 7: research into the thing that they have and that they

500
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 7: think there is not enough research into the pr machine

501
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 7: is a piece of how this works. And then you

502
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 7: end up they go to Capitol Hill and Congress puts

503
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 7: the sentence in a report for the funding of the

504
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 7: Department of Health and Human Services. It says, you will

505
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 7: please give this much money to lime disease or long

506
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 7: COVID or whatever. There actually is now an entire arm

507
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 7: of the National Institutes of Health that looks at alternative medicine,

508
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 7: and that was partly because people came to Congress and

509
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 7: convinced people in Congress that maybe we should actually look

510
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 7: at some of these things.

511
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 3: So I wanted to talk a little bit more broadly

512
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 3: about the difficulty of effective public health communication for lack

513
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 3: of a better word. I think that as someone who

514
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 3: in the past has worked in media companies, not in

515
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 3: any kind of health section or anything, but I have

516
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 3: seen firsthand how sensationalist and alarmist stories about health and

517
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 3: about specifically scientific studies just do very well and have

518
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 3: a staying power in the culture. And I'm thinking about

519
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 3: even just basically harmless things like dark chocolate is good

520
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 3: for you. A glass of red wine is good for you.

521
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 3: There is a sort of recklessness, even among journalists that

522
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 3: are otherwise very sophisticated and very ethical, just frame health

523
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 3: information in ways that I think in retrospect can be

524
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 3: seen as irresponsible. And I think that during COVID this

525
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 3: sort of reached a breaking point where it was often

526
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 3: not clear just as a news reader, what was one

527
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 3: hundred percent confirmed or one hundred percent true versus something

528
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 3: that was still an ongoing scientific debate. What can people

529
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 3: do to make public health communication more effective and to

530
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 3: foster a public that is better equipped to think about

531
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 3: these things.

532
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 7: Well, this has been basically my quest for the last figure.

533
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, every.

534
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 7: Time I talk to a public health professional, I mean

535
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 7: there is an entire branch of public health concerned only

536
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 7: with communication, with communicating to the public. I was disappointed

537
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 7: during COVID that a lot of these public health professionals

538
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 7: were unable to articulate things that I know they had

539
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 7: studied in public health school because I had studied them too. Again,

540
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 7: it's about communicating risks and benefits, how the scientific process works.

541
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 7: What we know, what we think we know, what we

542
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 7: might know, what we don't know, it is difficult. You

543
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 7: need to dumb it down if you will, not everybody

544
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 7: remembers what they learned in fifth grade science about the

545
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 7: scientific process and hypothesis and't testing and conclusions. Although it

546
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 7: would be good if we all went back and reviewed

547
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,479
Speaker 7: some of the elementary school science that we got, and

548
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 7: I assume that they're still teaching this in elementary school science.

549
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: How this works.

550
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 7: I really do think that the biggest failing of COVID

551
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 7: was the inability of the health community to communicate understandably

552
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 7: to the public. And I think I underestimated how much

553
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 7: trouble that would get us into down the line, and

554
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 7: now we are down the line and we are in trouble.

555
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think to me one of the most challenging

556
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 3: things is being both firm enough about, you know, precautions

557
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 3: that the public should take while also allowing for the

558
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 3: fact that science is constantly evolving. You can't take on

559
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 3: this stereotypical liberal voter stance of you know, in this house,

560
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 3: we believe in science as though. That is a very

561
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 3: rigid thing, because then you're setting yourself up for failure

562
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 3: if you pretend you are more confident than you actually are.

563
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 3: But then if you don't express confidence, then that's bad too,

564
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 3: because then you don't want to just be going out

565
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 3: and being like, well, you know, it might be one thing,

566
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 3: it might be the other. Who knows.

567
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 7: I don't know why it was so hard for public

568
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 7: health professionals to say, particularly at the beginning of COVID.

569
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 7: N ninety five masks are the best, but not everybody's

570
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 7: going to be able to get those. Surgical masks are

571
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 7: not as good as N ninety five masks, but they're

572
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 7: better than nothing. Cloth masks are not as good as

573
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 7: surgical masks, but covering your mouth with something is better

574
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 7: than nothing. Why they were not able to just say that,

575
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 7: rather than say talking about somef well, we don't want

576
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 7: to recommend, you know, N ninety five masks because there

577
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 7: are harn't enough and you know, health professionals need them,

578
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 7: and blah blah blah, and you know there's a muttering.

579
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 7: It's like, just say what you know, and that's what

580
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 7: you know. And then we did a lot of a

581
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 7: lot of studies, and you know, it turned out that masking,

582
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 7: probably putting masks on little kids didn't do that much,

583
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 7: but probably wearing N ninety five masks for a good while,

584
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 7: probably did save a lot of people. None of this

585
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 7: is perfect. This we were building a plan while we

586
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 7: were flying it. You can say that we're building a

587
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 7: plan while we're flying it.

588
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: This is what we know right now.

589
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 7: It might change tomorrow, but this is what we know

590
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 7: right now. And I don't know why they had so

591
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 7: much trouble, but I think they would have done themselves

592
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 7: a big favor by being a little more upfront with

593
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 7: their own sort of you know, how you talk about

594
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 7: these things to the public, rather than trying to just say,

595
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 7: we need to give advice, and this is the advice.

596
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 7: I think there was just so much of that and

597
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 7: people just weren't buying it. And now people say that

598
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 7: they were lied to. And I won't say that nobody

599
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 7: was lying, but I think most of the public health

600
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 7: officials were trying their best to communicate what they knew

601
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 7: at the time.

602
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 3: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

603
00:32:49,080 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 3: this break, and we're back with United States of Kennedy.

604
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: So looking forward now with RFK Secretary of Hell, what

605
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,479
Speaker 1: do you see coming down the line in terms of

606
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: communication but also just in terms of what his goals are.

607
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 7: It certainly seems pretty clear that his goals are to

608
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 7: undermine the vaccine availability. I had a story by one

609
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 7: of my former colleagues that I was touting today. The

610
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 7: next thing he's going to go after is the so

611
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 7: called Vaccine Court, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which I

612
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 7: covered when I was a baby reporter in the nineteen eighties.

613
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 7: The creation of it, which was basically to keep vaccines

614
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 7: being produced, because vaccine companies were saying, if they're going

615
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 7: to sue us into oblivion, we're just going to get

616
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 7: out of this business. It's not that profitable. We're going

617
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 7: to make other things that make us more money. And plus,

618
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 7: vaccines do have risks, and there are people who get

619
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 7: injured by vaccines. So basically this was a way to say, Okay,

620
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 7: we're going to collect this on all vaccines, and for

621
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 7: the people who can show that they have an injury

622
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 7: that's commensurate with a vaccine side effect, we're just going

623
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 7: to give them some money. That's essentially what it is,

624
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,240
Speaker 7: and over the years it's needed some changes.

625
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:14,760
Speaker 1: Mostly there's a huge backlog.

626
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,919
Speaker 7: There just aren't enough administrative law judges to actually give

627
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 7: people who are injured the compensation that they are due,

628
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 7: but it looks like Kennedy would like to take it

629
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 7: completely apart. We'll see, it was created by Congress. He's

630
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 7: done a lot of things that theoretically, if Congress had

631
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 7: raised his hand and said you can't do that, he

632
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 7: wouldn't have been able to do. But for the most part,

633
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 7: Congress is just kind of sitting back and letting all

634
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 7: of this happen. So, you know, I'll be interested to

635
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 7: see when Congress stands up and says, co equal branch

636
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 7: a government. Year, we created this program, you can't take

637
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 7: it apart.

638
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 3: Hasn't happened yet, Are you optimistic?

639
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to see.

640
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 3: Okay, not to get too conspiratorial, but you know, when

641
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 3: you see someone making these grand pronouncements in the highest

642
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 3: levels of a government, you know my mind goes to

643
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 3: is there money behind this? In some way? If a

644
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 3: different kind of his had was pushing some shady drug

645
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 3: or something, I'd say, Oh, I bet it's big pharma lobbying.

646
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 3: So I'm wondering for people who are anti vaxxer, for

647
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 3: people who have this sort of skepticism, are there larger

648
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 3: moneyed interests behind them?

649
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,359
Speaker 7: In some cases, yes, there are a lot of people

650
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 7: who make a lot of money from selling supplements and

651
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 7: unregulated things that they say can help your health that

652
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:31,280
Speaker 7: have not been as they always say in the tiny print,

653
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 7: not been cleared by the FDA, or sometimes I'll say

654
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 7: it's been cleared by the FDA, but not approved by

655
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 7: the FDA, because that's kind of weasel words, because cleared

656
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 7: by the FDA just means that it's not been found

657
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 7: to be actively dangerous, as opposed to it's been found

658
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 7: to work. So yes, there are moneyed interests. There are

659
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 7: people making money from being anti vas and anti big

660
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 7: pharma and anti big medicine. But I don't think that

661
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 7: when RFK Junior says that everything is because people are conflicted.

662
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 7: I know people who work Itartment of Health and Human

663
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 7: Services who have very difficult jobs. They don't get paid

664
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 7: a ton of money. They do it because they believe

665
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,439
Speaker 7: in the mission, and frankly, they could be making more

666
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 7: money if they were out working for big pharma. Have

667
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 7: there been people who've done the revolving door, particularly from

668
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 7: FDA to pharma. Absolutely, I'm not saying that every single

669
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 7: person is a saint, but I'm also saying that not

670
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 7: every single person is as conflicted as some of the

671
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 7: conspiracy theorists say they are, and that the conspiracy theorists

672
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 7: who are saying that it's all about big pharma and

673
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 7: big medicine, some of them have their own conflicts.

674
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: We could just talk a brief general history of the

675
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: anti VAXX moment. We talked about rfk's role in it,

676
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: but just more generally.

677
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I say it is a combination of people

678
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 7: who are anti being told what to do, so they

679
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 7: don't like vaccine mandates. And of course that's how public

680
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 7: health works, is that vaccines work best by creating what's

681
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 7: called herd immunity. That if you get enough people who

682
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 7: are vaccinated, then the people who can't be vaccinated, who

683
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 7: are too young or who are immune compromise, they are

684
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 7: protected because if there is a random case here or

685
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 7: there of a contagious disease, it won't spread because enough

686
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 7: people in the herd have been vaccinated. So they're the

687
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 7: libertarian side of this, that you don't tell me what

688
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 7: to do. And then there are the I don't want

689
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 7: to put anything artificial in my body. These are the

690
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 7: people who also like to drink raw milk, which can

691
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 7: be really dangerous there's a reason we've been pasteurizing milk

692
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 7: for one hundred and fifty years. It kills things that

693
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 7: can make you really sick. And this has been the

694
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 7: anti vaxx movement is basically the mixture of those two

695
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 7: sides of the people that don't want to be told

696
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 7: what to do and the people who do not believe

697
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 7: in modern medicine.

698
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: Yeah.

699
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 3: I was listening to Rachel Badard, the health writer who

700
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 3: sometimes writes for The New York Or. She was on

701
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 3: some podcasts, and this actually has made a click for

702
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 3: me a bit. She was saying that rfk's politics are

703
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 3: driven by an obsession with purity and contamination, and that

704
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 3: really unites his interest in climate change and global warming

705
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 3: with his interest in preventing toxins from getting into your body.

706
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 3: And of course those are two poles of the same impulse,

707
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 3: one of them, when my opinion, is pro social and

708
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 3: the other one is antisocial. But I think an obsession

709
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 3: with purity and contamination is both part of the right

710
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 3: wing libertarian type of mentality that you're describing and the

711
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 3: kind of left wing hippie health food.

712
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 7: It's funny he's created a make America Healthy Again scorecard

713
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 7: on the HHS website, which I was looking at what

714
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 7: the headings are.

715
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: And I mean, the other thing that Robert F.

716
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 7: Kennedy Junior has done is he's taken things that are

717
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 7: fairly popular among a bipartisan group of people. We should

718
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 7: not have pesticides in food. That's a bad thing. Autism.

719
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 7: If we can figure out how we should prevent kids

720
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 7: from getting autism, vaccines should be safe. We probably should

721
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 7: revise our dietary guidelines. Ultra processed food is bad for you.

722
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 7: Having all these neon colored fruit loops is probably bad.

723
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: For you, and you should take it out of Sarah.

724
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 7: None of those things are particularly controversial unless you're the

725
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 7: pest side industry, of the food dye industry, or somebody

726
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 7: who's making money from that side of it. A lot

727
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 7: of the things that he talks about and that we

728
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 7: know he feels very strongly about are things that are

729
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 7: fairly universally popular. I think that's why Trump was so

730
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 7: interested in getting Robert F. Kennedy Junior on his side,

731
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 7: because he brings along a piece of a movement that

732
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 7: Trump didn't otherwise have.

733
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: Well. I think also it's like, yes, who would argue

734
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: against that? And I think that something that we have

735
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: collectively seen while doing this podcast is that people really

736
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: want the Kennedys to be right. And I just wonder

737
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: if you could speak on RFK Junior being a Kennedy's

738
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 1: impact on his ability to push forward on these goals

739
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: or continue to be a public figure even though he

740
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: has separated himself so much from the Kennedy family in

741
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: the Kennedy history.

742
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 7: I would say, I think the biggest frustration are from

743
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 7: his own own family, his siblings, who are constantly saying, please,

744
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 7: don't listen to our brother. He's crazy. I mean, that's

745
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 7: literally what they are saying. It really is difficult, I

746
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 7: think for the family because you know, when I'm a

747
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 7: child of the sixties, so I grew up with Kennedy's everywhere,

748
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 7: and I understand sort of the allure and the immediate magnetism.

749
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 7: And I've known many, many members of the Kennedy family,

750
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 7: so you know, I get it, and the enormous popularity

751
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,240
Speaker 7: and the belief. You know, I think even President Trump,

752
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 7: who was Democrat for most of his life, is fascinated

753
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 7: by the Kennedys. They're the closest that we have in

754
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 7: the United States to you know, American Royalty. Trump loves

755
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 7: the idea that he has his own Kennedy, so I

756
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 7: think that's been part of the drivers of this. But

757
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 7: as I say, I think the people who are most

758
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 7: frustrated are his relatives who don't believe in most of

759
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 7: what he's doing and keep trying to tell the public that.

760
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 3: Well, this has been really really great. Thank you for

761
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 3: making everything concise and understandable to someone with a very

762
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 3: passing knowledge of all this stuff. Really, I'll have to

763
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 3: go back and.

764
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 7: Listen to the rest of this podcast because now I'm fascinated.

765
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: Right, Thank you so much. Of course, thank you. That's

766
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,439
Speaker 1: it for this week's episode.

767
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 3: And next week we're going back to regularly scheduled programming,

768
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 3: digging into the blood feud between RFK Senior Bobby Kennedy

769
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 3: and Jimmy Hoffa.

770
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy is hosted by me Lyra Smith

771
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: and George Severes.

772
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 3: Research by Dave Rus and Austin Thompson.

773
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: Original music by Josh Waitzapolski.

774
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 3: Edited by Graham Gibson, and mixed by Doug bain. Our

775
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 3: Executive producer is Jenna Cagele. United States of Kennedy is

776
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 3: a production of iHeart podcasts.

777
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: Subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all things

778
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: Kennedy every week