The 'life and death' stakes of allowing RFK Jr. to lead HHS will be made clear, US Sen. Markey says

BOSTON — Sen. Ed Markey vowed to do everything in his power to stand in the way of the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy to lead the nation’s health care system.

Markey, D-Mass., who is chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, was joined Tuesday in Boston by public health policy experts and a representative of the state’s largest nurses union as he declared his opposition to the appointment of Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

“The stakes are life and death,” Markey said of Kennedy’s nomination.

An anti-vaccine advocate, Kennedy declared in a 2023 podcast that “no vaccine ... is safe and effective” and has urged parents to resist vaccination guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, which he will oversee as secretary.

Markey said the all-encompassing Department of Health and Human Services impacts every U.S. citizen, “from cradle to grave.”

“It is our health care North Star. It ensures medications are safe and effective. It keeps workers, students and seniors safe. It protects the public from global pandemics or disease outbreaks. It guarantees hospitals, doctors and community health centers provide safe, quality care. It fights for affordable medicine, tests and treatment,” Markey said.

“(He’s) a man that has questioned the well-proven conclusion that HIV causes AIDS, made millions by spreading lies about vaccines, and compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, said WIFI and cellphones cause ‘leaky brains,’ threatened to remove fluoride from drinking water, and made baseless claims that medication for depression led to mass shootings,” Markey said.

Kennedy, following his selection by Trump, said he will work to “bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic,” calling it a “generational moment.”

“I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” he said.

But Oami Amarisingham, Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance, said Kennedy’s nomination has “alarmed” the public health community.

“As we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, health is not simply a matter of personal choice. Public policy and government programs have a significant role to play in creating the conditions for people to be healthy,” she said. “When it comes to our health, no person is an island, and this is especially the case when it comes to infectious disease.”

Science-based public policy is responsible for the near elimination of diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, smallpox and rubella, and vastly expanding the life expectancy of U.S. residents. Embracing a nonscientific approach to medicine is not a sound path forward, Amarisingham said.

“Health policy must focus on health equity and trustworthy, science-based evidence,” she said.

Ellen MacInnis, a nurse speaking on behalf of the Massachusetts Nursing Association, said, “We need to have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who has scientific credentials and the public policy background necessary for this position.”

The person who fills that role will oversee every aspect of health care delivery in the United States, MacInnis said. It’s not a job for an outsider, and nurses, she said, have a moral and ethical responsibility to speak out when their patients are put at risk.

“Which is why we are here today with Senator Markey, to voice our strong opposition to this appointment,” she said.

Markey said that he will vote “no” to Kennedy’s appointment, and that he thinks after the Senate goes through its “advise and consent” role in the process and holds hearings on the matter, many of his Republican colleagues will as well.

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