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The cover of The Lancet, and their article on RFK Jr.
Last edited Fri Feb 27, 2026, 01:01 PM - Edit history (2)
Every senator who voted to confirm RFK Jr owns this tragedy. Every single one.
— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) 2026-02-27T14:51:35.805Z
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00414-9/fulltext
Editing to add that because DU's software won't include the proper link above as a link, instead breaking it at the parenthesis, you'll have to copy the complete link into an address bar or search engine.
Editing again after finding out you can also use this link -
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900414-9/fulltext - which substitutes %28 for ( and %29 for ) as explained in replies 22 and 23 below.
The Lancet Journal
Editorial • Volume 407, Issue 10531, P825, February 28, 2026
Robert F Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure
In his first speech as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F Kennedy Jr laid out a plan to restore trust. The COVID-19 pandemic saw public faith in Federal health and science plummet—between April, 2020, and September, 2023, the percentage of polling respondents who trusted coronavirus and vaccine information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “a great deal” or “a fair amount”, fell from 83% to 63%—and the HHS employees to whom he was speaking were facing devastating mass lay-offs and funding cuts. Although Kennedy did not mince words about the likely fate of staff resistant to his ambitions, he promised open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again. To the Senate committee who confirmed his nomination, Kennedy promised a receptive and collaborative relationship, and to the public from whom he claims his mandate, he promised a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering. Radical transparency, gold-standard science, ethics, compassion, competency, and pride would restore to HHS the unimpeachable authority that the USA needs and deserves. Politicians are known to break promises, but Kennedy's record, 1 year in, has been a failure by most measures, especially his own.
10 days after his speech about trust and openness, HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve. Kennedy has summarily dismissed advisers and experts, communicated policy changes on pay-walled media, fired a whistleblower, and overseen the revisions of guidelines and recommendations, contradicting decades of established science, often to the benefit of industries he formerly condemned. Under Kennedy's leadership, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shuttered programmes studying the health effects of air pollution, HHS withheld a report linking alcohol consumption to cancer, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew warnings of potential harm from consuming products (such as raw milk and chlorine dioxide) falsely marketed as treatments for autism. His changes at CDC have driven 26 states to reject official guidance on vaccine policy, and in December the CDC awarded an unsolicited $1·6 million grant to conduct a vaccine study in Guinea-Bissau that raised so many ethical concerns—the design would have risked exposing thousands of unvaccinated children to hepatitis B—that it has been compared to the infamous Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
HHS under Kennedy has made a habit of throwing good money after bad science. Amid the Trump administration's cuts to research funding and personnel there has been a harmful shift in priorities. Cutting-edge discoveries and clinical investigations—on subjects ranging from mRNA vaccines to diabetes and dementia—are denied crucial resources while junk science and fringe beliefs are elevated without justifiable explanation. Under Kennedy's leadership, politicisation at the NIH, FDA, and CDC is imperilling the future of US science and innovation and throttling the public health enterprise that keeps the country safe today.
The mechanisms maintained by the Federal Government to monitor and report health concerns such as drug overdoses, maternal mortality, and food security have been as beleaguered as the doctors and scientists who rely on them; thousands of datasets are no longer publicly available, leaving Americans—and the world—unprepared to respond to future crises. And crises are looming: in November, 2025, the first human infection (and death) from the H5N5 strain of avian flu was recorded in Washington state; pertussis, which killed 13 people in the USA in 2025, continues to spread across the country; and the measles outbreak that began in January of last year now threatens the elimination status of the USA and Mexico.
-snip-
Editorial • Volume 407, Issue 10531, P825, February 28, 2026
Robert F Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure
In his first speech as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F Kennedy Jr laid out a plan to restore trust. The COVID-19 pandemic saw public faith in Federal health and science plummet—between April, 2020, and September, 2023, the percentage of polling respondents who trusted coronavirus and vaccine information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “a great deal” or “a fair amount”, fell from 83% to 63%—and the HHS employees to whom he was speaking were facing devastating mass lay-offs and funding cuts. Although Kennedy did not mince words about the likely fate of staff resistant to his ambitions, he promised open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again. To the Senate committee who confirmed his nomination, Kennedy promised a receptive and collaborative relationship, and to the public from whom he claims his mandate, he promised a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering. Radical transparency, gold-standard science, ethics, compassion, competency, and pride would restore to HHS the unimpeachable authority that the USA needs and deserves. Politicians are known to break promises, but Kennedy's record, 1 year in, has been a failure by most measures, especially his own.
10 days after his speech about trust and openness, HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve. Kennedy has summarily dismissed advisers and experts, communicated policy changes on pay-walled media, fired a whistleblower, and overseen the revisions of guidelines and recommendations, contradicting decades of established science, often to the benefit of industries he formerly condemned. Under Kennedy's leadership, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shuttered programmes studying the health effects of air pollution, HHS withheld a report linking alcohol consumption to cancer, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew warnings of potential harm from consuming products (such as raw milk and chlorine dioxide) falsely marketed as treatments for autism. His changes at CDC have driven 26 states to reject official guidance on vaccine policy, and in December the CDC awarded an unsolicited $1·6 million grant to conduct a vaccine study in Guinea-Bissau that raised so many ethical concerns—the design would have risked exposing thousands of unvaccinated children to hepatitis B—that it has been compared to the infamous Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
HHS under Kennedy has made a habit of throwing good money after bad science. Amid the Trump administration's cuts to research funding and personnel there has been a harmful shift in priorities. Cutting-edge discoveries and clinical investigations—on subjects ranging from mRNA vaccines to diabetes and dementia—are denied crucial resources while junk science and fringe beliefs are elevated without justifiable explanation. Under Kennedy's leadership, politicisation at the NIH, FDA, and CDC is imperilling the future of US science and innovation and throttling the public health enterprise that keeps the country safe today.
The mechanisms maintained by the Federal Government to monitor and report health concerns such as drug overdoses, maternal mortality, and food security have been as beleaguered as the doctors and scientists who rely on them; thousands of datasets are no longer publicly available, leaving Americans—and the world—unprepared to respond to future crises. And crises are looming: in November, 2025, the first human infection (and death) from the H5N5 strain of avian flu was recorded in Washington state; pertussis, which killed 13 people in the USA in 2025, continues to spread across the country; and the measles outbreak that began in January of last year now threatens the elimination status of the USA and Mexico.
-snip-
More at the link.
70 replies
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But this cartoon makes him look way too good imo, especially his face. He looks all happy and friendly here, but irl his usual facial expression is sour, scornful, and enbittered. Like he thinks has 1000% smarter than everybody else and and is mad at the world for not recognizing that. 
Worst HHS director in American history. Fuck him. 
And each one is more horrifying than the next. They exist to do two things - destroy whatever department they're in charge of, and kiss his worthless, disgusting ass on Fox News nightly. Fox News got their dream president and administration - and we're all paying the price for it.
Fox News has done more damage to the United States than Al'Qaeda or the Taliban could ever dream of.
Nothing is spared from these sick fucks. 
THE. BILLIONAIRES. WANT. TO. KILL. US.
Couldn't be more obvious 
WHAT EXACTLY is the INCENTIVE for repukes to fuck with PUBLIC HEALTH - WHAT?!?!?!
