RFK Jr. Is Madder Than a Betrayed MAHA Mom: Public Health Project Newsletter

Trump’s health secretary is positively furious at the New York Times for daring to talk to several of his work colleagues about what everyone can plainly see is a dysfunctional mess at HHS under RFK Jr.’s absentee leadership. In his frothy-mouthed 871-word tweet to the offending NYT reporter, Kennedy barked: “All one needs to refute your argument is to glance at my publicly available calendar.”

Hilariously, STAT stepped in to throw the B.S. flag on that: “RFK Jr. claims his calendar is publicly available. We’ve been trying to get it for a year.”

And NBC News rolled in with reinforcing reporting on how Kennedy has perpetuated a dangerous leadership and expertise vacuum: “In total, 15 of 33 leadership positions at the NIH, 14 of 26 at the CDC and 10 of 22 at the FDA are being filled by temporary appointees or appear empty.”

But the NYT reporting is all ‘unfair’ and made up, says Kennedy, lashing out when basic accountability comes knocking and demanding credit for ‘accomplishments’ that do not exist. Sound familiar?

Who’s Angrier, RFK Jr or the MAHA Moms He and Trump Played Like a Fiddle? This week, Politico shared the latest round of scathing commentary from MAHA moms “at the end of their rope” with Trump and RFK Jr., who they feel abandoned their priorities “after a string of perceived losses on pesticides and chemical regulations”. “I don’t think Trump is concerned about health in any way, shape or form,” said one MAHA influencer. Ouch.

Opting not to mend any MAHA fences, a day later the Trump administration was busy defending its reported scheme to pressure EPA scientists to “alter safety reviews of chemicals commonly found in consumer products like household cleaners and cosmetics to make risks to human health and the environment disappear on paper” after Trump installed “former chemical industry insiders and lobbyists to lead key agency offices overseeing chemical regulation.”

Trump Forgave Yet Another Big Time Fraudster At RFK Jr.’s Urging: Reuters reports on the latest in a long list of cases of Donald Trump letting major convicted fraudsters who happen to be big GOP donors off the hook: “Days before granting him a pardon in March of last year, President Donald Trump phoned Trevor Milton, an electric-vehicle entrepreneur and Republican donor who was convicted of defrauding investors of more than $660 million. … Among those who put in a good word, Trump said, was U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

RFK Jr. Resistance Keeps Growing From Legitimate Medical Community: This week we learned the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) released their own recommended maternal vaccine schedule, breaking “for the first time” with CDC guidance that RFK Jr. watered down last year for no credible reason. Meanwhile, Politico reports the American Medical Association is dropping ‘its nice guy routine’ by electing interest and ‘uncompromising Kennedy critic’ Sandra Fryhofer as AMA president-elect: “Measles running rampant, public health destroyed, a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid, inadequate physician payment, stupid immigration rules,” Fryhofer told AMA members in promising to call out Kennedy and the Trump administration on all of it.

Is This What RFK Jr. Considers An ‘Accomplishment’: Secretary Kennedy has succeeded all too well as crushing public trust in the institutions he oversees. PBS notes a major new poll finding that “Only 50% of Americans say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations to improve public health right now, down from 77% last year.”

Someone Beat Out RFK Jr. For Anti-Vax-Liar-of-The-Week, For Once. RFK Jr. has never stopped saying or doing irresponsible things designed to scare Americans away from proven safe and effective vaccines. But attention-starved Republican Senator Ron Johnson outshined him this week, at least, with a ludicrous yet still very dangerous claim that “hundreds of thousands” of Americans died from Covid vaccines. Unlike Johnson’s claim sourced directly from his behind, legitimate peer-reviewed science found the Covid vaccine SAVED 3.2 million American lives.

Most Disturbing Quote-of-the-Week Goes to Troubled Raw Milk Producer With RFK Jr. on Speed Dial: “I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered. But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb,” raw milk producer Mark McAfee bluntly told ProPublica. In fact, “At least 233 people have been sickened in eight outbreaks that federal and state regulators have connected to McAfee’s farm since 2006, and at least 40 of them have been hospitalized.” And of course, McAfee boasts “I go way back with” RFK Jr. who has railed against “aggressive suppression” of raw milk.

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