Was This The Week RFK Jr. Finally Acted Normal? Public Health Project Newsletter

Health Secretary Kennedy had another normal one, except his behavior was only normal in his own mind.

First, he sent his top advisor and his son to the All-Drug Olympics, billed as the ‘Enhanced Games’ in Las Vegas, which set out to prove that banned substances in organized sports — like peptides that RFK Jr. is pushing hard to make widely accessible despite its unproven benefits and unknown risks – ‘could push the limits of human performance.’ The event did no such thing.

Then Kennedy did his best Pentecostal snake-handling preacher impression and posted a video of himself harassing innocent snakes only to get bit repeatedly in the process. This prompted the question from the NYT: is he doing it right? This prompted him to post a second video of him wrangling another snake, except a venomous one. All of this prompts the larger question: what is with Kennedy’s obsession with grabbing wild animals and defiling dead ones? Jesus Christ, Bobby.

And rounding out the week, despite a worsening Ebola global health emergency, Kennedy used his taxpayer-funded podcast to promote one of his passion projects: raising awareness about low-sperm count in teen boys. It’d be incredibly concerning if this guy was the highest-ranking health official in all the land, ah…sh*t.

MAHA Getting Madder: PBS talked with more MAHA self-identifiers who’ve grown “frustrated with Trump’s health policies” like embracing glyphosate – just one of the many times Trump put the profits of his polluter donors over promises made to MAHA, all with RFK Jr.’s seal of approval. Said one MAHA mom to PBS: “When RFK Jr. put out his statement on glyphosate, I would hope that I would have been a little more honest about it. I do believe he knows the harm this toxic chemical does to people.”

Trump’s Bumbling and Reprehensible Response to Ebola Crisis: The Ebola outbreak in central and east Africa is getting worse by the day with now over 1,000 suspected cases and hundreds of suspected deaths. The situation that has exposed several Americans is now at risk of becoming ‘deadliest on record.’

It should have been detected and seriously dealt with several weeks sooner, but for Donald Trump’s bad judgement and worse priorities. The highly deadly and contagious virus was allowed to ‘rage for weeks in the Congo before anyone raised the alarm’ no thanks to our surveillance and response capacity decimated by Trump’s profound cuts to USAID, the CDC and other critical infrastructure.

And yet, rather than take any responsibility, Trump insists on throwing more gas on the fire. It was reported by CNN that key officials responsible for leading US research on infectious disease threats had been barred from speaking directly with WHO involving global discussions on virus outbreaks. Once exposed, the administration apparently scrambled to save face by clearing some NIAID staff members to attend meetings.

Then came the reports of Trump’s reported plan to throw long-standing precedent out the window and send American public health officers exposed to Ebola in central Africa to a makeshift quarantine facility in Kenya rather than safely bring them home to the U.S. for the best possible care – effectively leaving Americans behind to die.

This is at least consistent with Trump’s sociopathic take in 2014: “People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!”

While Trump’s vile, un-American plan drew swift rebuke from doctors and career diplomats from home and abroad, now a Kenyan court has temporarily blocked the U.S. quarantine facility.

The administration’s Ebola response may be too little, too late and beyond incompetent, but at least a top Trump official never called Ebola a “scam.” Oh, no.

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