Measles and Predators

RFK Jr. Unleashed

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services may be the most reckless of all of Donald Trump's appointments.

Some may think that Kennedy's anti-vax beliefs are rooted in naivety or that he has gone too far down the conspiracy rabbit hole. But it was the comments by his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, that chilled me.

In a letter to U.S. Senators, she referred to RFK Jr. as a "predator."

On his views on medicine, she wrote that he was "dangerously and willfully misinformed."

But then she went further:

"Bobby [Robert Jr.] is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs."

This is the man Trump put in charge of $40 billion in cuts to the health budget.

Kennedy has overseen the arbitrary firing of thousands of skilled employees at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collaborating with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he has fired 10,000 employees on top of another 10,000 who left with early buy-outs.

His casual indifference to public health is evident through his admission that at least 20% of those firings were mistakes.

Oh well, the Trump bulldozer carries on.

At risk now are programs dealing with the opioid crisis, containing HIV and handling the most dangerous outbreak of measles in a generation.

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Measles was an illness that was supposed to have been eradicated. Its frightening return is linked to a massive drop in vaccination rates. Trump's man in charge just so happens to be the pre-eminent driver of global vaccine disinformation.

Talk about giving Dracula the keys to the blood bank.

In 2020, Kennedy's front group, Children's Health Defense, was identified as one of two groups responsible for 54% of paid vaccine disinformation on Facebook.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate named Kennedy among the "Disinformation Dozen". Their study found that two-thirds of the vaccine disinformation posted online during COVID could be traced to just 12 individuals – and RFK Jr. was the most visible and vocal.

Charlie Angus with a public health nurse at a mobile vaccination clinic (Timmins)

Even as measles threatens to jump from regional outbreaks to national epidemics, Kennedy continues to spout disinformation on autism while downplaying the importance of the measles vaccine.

When it comes to vaccine disinformation he is King Troll and now he is deciding who will be fired in the key health departments.

The effects of his appointment will be paid for in children's lives.

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My grandmother, Lola, served as a nurse at Timmins Hospital from the 1930s to the early 70s. She recounted the outbreaks of diphtheria, rubella, and whooping cough. She told me about working with badly crippled children in the polio ward. Their suffering was something that she never got over. My grandmother was always worried that if we weren't careful, those days would come back.

But my generation were children of the Salk vaccine and penicillin. And we took public health for granted. Over time, some of us began to think we could just opt out and go our own ways. After all, the days of pandemics and killer children's viruses were distant memories.

My Grandmother, Lola.

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During COVID, however, these individual acts of opting out morphed into an unlikely new political force – the "conspirituality" movement. The combination of personal health obsession with conspiracy upended traditional politics.

It gave right-wing extremism a major makeover.

Conspirituality didn't just happen. It was driven by online algorithms that tapped obsessions over personal health and suspicion of science into wormhole paths for QAnon. This process is chillingly revealed in the book The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher.

Fisher tracks the role of Facebook and YouTube algorithms and the rise of political instability all over the globe. He identifies vaccine disinformation as a key pathway for political radicalization.

Fisher tells the story of Reneé DiResta, a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. As a Silicon Valley investor and young mom, DiResta attempted to get her head around the fact that even though only a small percentage of the California population held anti-vaccine views, they had an inordinate impact on the rising resistance of parents to get their children vaccinated.

DiResta went on Facebook to join discussion groups for moms and soon found that the algorithm was sending her all manner of suggestions for sites that promoted conspiracy and health disinformation.

But then she noticed something more concerning: the algorithms were feeding her more and more politically extremist content.

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In Brazil, the impact of these algorithmic manipulations had serious consequences during the rise of the deadly Zika virus. As parents sought out health information online, they were led to sites promoting falsehoods. Zika is a horrible way for a child to die, and frightened parents who sought out information online were being told that doctors were deliberately spreading the virus through the immunization needle.

This had profound impacts on fighting the virus. But then the conspiracy morphed into political extremism. Death threats against Brazil's front-line medical workers began to mount. Conspiracy sites blamed George Soros, feminists, and the World Health Organization for driving the illness.

This fear of the Zika vaccine was a key jump-off point for Jair Bolsonaro. He was a marginal political figure who had figured out how to use the YouTube algorithms to build a huge base of supporters. He rode the anti-vax, anti-science wave and shocked the country when he won the election.

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So, why would the algorithm push people towards conspiracy theories, falsehood and even hate?

It's all about eyeballs on the screen. Machine-driven AI is programmed to keep people glued to their screens as long as possible.

A mother who believes vaccines are safe is not likely to spend much time in a group chat. After all, what is there to talk about? However, someone who is told that their child is being experimented on by mysterious and dark forces will want to know more and might become more willing to believe that there is a conspiracy that must be fought.

The AI-driven algorithms were providing an endless run of conspiracy content to keep people hooked and manipulated.

DiResta brought her meticulous research to Silicon Valley, believing they would want to know how the algorithm was distorting the truth in favour of conspiracy theories. But she soon found out that companies like Facebook were making too much money from the huge amount of time people were spending on the platform.

Extremist content had become part of the profit line.

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North Americans first saw the political impacts with the explosive rise of conspiracy during COVID. The result was felt in human lives.

According to a January 2023 study by the Council of Canadian Academies, vaccine misinformation was responsible for 198,000 extra cases of COVID-19, 13,000 more people sent to hospital, and a $300 million hit to a medical system.

It also led to the unnecessary deaths of an estimated 2,800 Canadians. That's roughly 1,000 more than the annual automobile deaths from one end of the country to the other.

The people who died weren't weirdo extremists. They were ordinary people – your cousin, my neighbour, a trusted teacher. And yet they became convinced that a medical effort to stop a deadly new virus was a greater threat than the virus itself.

And politicians were more than ready to drive the fear.

In the last parliament, Pierre Poilievre drove a private members bill to provide "freedom" for those who didn't want to follow vaccine rules. This was before the measles outbreaks. If passed, it could have overridden the reasonable public health measures that ensure children at your kid's daycare are up to date on their measles vaccinations.

Trump and Poilievre know the power of rage-baiting. They know how to tap into fear and conspiracy. This is why Trump has put the most notorious peddler of vaccine disinformation into a key position of authority at a time of growing threat to children.

RFK Jr. is in the very early stages of his reign as head of health in the United States.

One of Kennedy’s first acts in office was to order the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to halt its publicity campaign encouraging uptake of this year's seasonal flu vaccine. He also cancelled the CDC meeting on immunization practices.

Serious concerns about the United States walking away from the global campaign to contain future flu and other viruses are being raised.

We are already seeing the enormous impacts on the United States economy from Trump's Joker politics – men like Navarro, Hegseth and Musk and conspiracy peddlers like Tulsi Gabbard are fundamentally unfit for public service.

But, it is the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that may have the most lasting and dangerous impact.

And not just on the health of Americans.

The United States has long been a key leader in the fight against the spread of global health threats. Their science is second to none. If they pull out of this role, the cost will be paid in thousands of lives.

If a notorious conspiracy peddler of medical falsehoods is allowed to dictate science and medical research, the impact will be tragic.

My grandmother would weep.

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Upon being asked
to accept the
sacrifice
of having to wear
a mask
many decided they
would rather
sacrifice
their neighbors instead.
— @plaguepoems, 14th Week, COVID epidemic

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