“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.
“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS),” Trump said in a statement. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health.”
The lifelong Democrat became an Independent during his presidential campaign and then endorsed Trump, helping propel Trump to victory.
Kennedy has been outspoken about the need to take on corporate food companies as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to address the chronic health crisis in America.
“The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country,” Trump said. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy is also known for his skepticism of some vaccines.
Kennedy has pushed his “Make America Healthy Again” movement in recent months, raising concerns about the chemicals in American food and how federal health agencies have either allowed harmful food and drugs or been coopted by corporations.
The MAHA website emphasizes regenerative agriculture, habitat preservation, combatting corporate corruption and removing toxins from the environment.
“Robert F Kennedy Jr will be The Secretary of Health and Human Services!” Donald Trump Jr. posted on X. “Promises Made Promises Kept.”
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‘Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,’ explained the new HHS head. ‘Why would you give that to a baby?’
In a widely-viewed video shared on social media, the new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asserted that the majority of vaccines — including those he sees as unjustifiably being mandated for infants — have been developed primarily to create profits for Big Pharma.
“Most of the vaccines after 1989 were added not for public health reasons but for pharmaceutical profit reasons,” said Kennedy.
“Why are we vaccinating one-day-old babies for Hepatitis B?” he asked.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,” he said, reemphasizing, “Why would you give that to a baby?”
According to Kennedy, Pharmaceutical giant Merck was directed by both the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to develop the Hepatitis B vaccine for “those vulnerable populations.”
He explained that when those populations showed little interest in the vaccine, “Merck went back to the agencies and said ‘You told us to develop this vaccine, but nobody’s buying it.”
“The CDC said, ‘Don’t worry’” recounted Kennedy, “we’ll just recommend it for children and we’ll force everybody to buy it.”
“So, that’s how it got on the [childhood vaccine] schedule,” he said, declaring, “There’s no medical justification.”
RFK JR: “Merck went back to the agencies and said you told us to develop this [Hepatitis B] vaccine. Nobody's buying it. And CDC said don't worry, we'll just recommend it for children. We'll force everybody to buy it. That's how it got on the schedule.” pic.twitter.com/JTmATn8UbP
There’s no downstream liability, there’s no front-end safety testing – that saves them a quarter billion dollars – and there’s no marketing and advertising costs, because the federal government is ordering 78 million school kids to take that vaccine every year.
What better product could you have? And so there was a gold rush to add all these new vaccines to the schedule that we don’t need. Most of these vaccines are unnecessary. Many of them are for diseases that are not even casually contagious.
It was a gold rush, because if you get onto that schedule, it’s a billion dollars a year for your company.
And in many cases, NIH is earning the royalties.
According to Kennedy, more obscene than the huge profits being horded by Big Pharma are the vast number of negative side-effects from all those untested vaccines.
“Neurological diseases” have “exploded,” he said.
“ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy. These are all things that I never heard of,” said Kennedy. “Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation according to CDC data to one in every 34 kids today.”
Kennedy is known for vehemently opposing vaccines without proper knowledge for those taking them, a stance he adopted after the mothers of vaccine-injured children implored him to look into the research linking thimerosal to neurological injuries, including autism. He went on to found Children’s Health Defense, an organization with the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” largely through vaccines.
A B.C. pharmacy scam investigation has led the provincial government to return to a witnessed consumption model for safer supply
More than 60 pharmacies across B.C. are alleged to have participated in a kickback scheme linked to safer supply drugs, according to a provincial report released Feb. 19.
On Feb. 5, the BC Conservatives leaked a report that showed the findings of an internal investigation by theB.C. Ministry of Health. That investigation showed dozens of pharmacies were filling prescriptions patients did not require in order to overbill the government. These safer supply drugs were then diverted onto the black market.
After the report was leaked, the province committed to ending take-home safer supply models, which allow users to take hydromorphone pills home in bottles. Instead, it will require drug users to consume prescribed opioids in a witnessed program, under the oversight of a medical professional.
Gregory Sword, whose 14-year-old daughter Kamilah died in August 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill that had been diverted from B.C.’s safer supply program, expressed outrage over the report’s findings.
“This is so frustrating to hear that [pharmacies] were making money off this program and causing more drugs [to flood] the street,” Sword told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.
The investigation found that pharmacies exploited B.C.’s Frequency of Dispensing policy to maximize billings. To take advantage of dispensing fees, pharmacies incentivized clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market. Pharmacies earned up to $11,000 per patient a year.
“I’m positive that [the B.C. government has] known this for a long time and only made this decision when the public became aware and the scrutiny was high,” said Elenore Sturko, Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, who released the leaked report in a statement on Feb. 5.
“As much as I am really disappointed in how long it’s taken for this decision to be made, I am also happy that this has happened,” she said.
The health ministry said it is investigating the implicated pharmacies. Those that are confirmed to have been involved could have their licenses suspended, be referred to law enforcement or become ineligible to participate in PharmaCare, the provincial program that helps residents cover the costs of prescription drugs.
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The leaked report says that “a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.” It also says “prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.”
Critics of the safer supply program say it enables addiction, while supporters say it reduces overdoses.
Sword, Kamilah’s father, is suing the provincial and federal governments, arguing B.C.’s safer supply program made it possible for youth such as his daughter to access drugs.
Madison, Kamilah’s best friend, also became addicted to opioids dispensed through safer supply programs. Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills dispensed through safer supply, but widely available on the streets. She developed a tolerance that led her to fentanyl.
“I do know for sure that some pharmacies and doctors were aware of the diversion,” Madison’s mother Beth told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.
“When I first realized what my daughter was taking and how she was getting it, I phoned the pharmacy and the doctor on the label of the pill bottle to inform them that the patient was selling their hydromorphone,” Beth said.
Masha Krupp, an Ottawa mother who has a son enrolled in a safer supply program, has said the safer supply program in her city is similarly flawed. Canadian Affairs previously reported on this program, which is run by Recovery Care’s Ottawa-based harm reduction clinics.
“I read about the B.C. pharmacy scheme and wasn’t surprised,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20. Krupp lost a daughter to methadone toxicity while she was in an addiction treatment program at Recovery Care.
“Three years [after starting safer supply], my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Oct. 22, 2024.
Krupp has been vocal about the dangers of dispensing large quantities of opioids without proper oversight, arguing many patients sell their prescriptions to buy stronger street drugs.
“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say, ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street.”
Krupp has also advocated for witnessed consumption of safer supply medications, arguing supervised dosing would prevent diversion and ensure proper oversight of pharmacies.
“I had talked about witnessed dosing for safe supply when I appeared before the parliamentary health committee last October,” she told Canadian Affairs this week.
“I’m grateful that finally … this decision has been made to return to a witness program,” said Sturko, the B.C. MLA.
In 2020, B.C. implemented a witnessed consumption model to ensure safer supply opioids were consumed as prescribed and to reduce diversion. In 2021, the province switched to take-home models. Its stated aim was to expand access, save lives and ease pressure on health-care facilities during the pandemic.
“You’re really fighting against a group of people … working within the bureaucracy of [the B.C. NDP] government … who have been making efforts to work towards the legalization of drugs and, in doing that, have looked only for opportunities to bolster their arguments for their position, instead of examining their approach in a balanced way,” said Sturko.
“These are foreseeable outcomes when you do not put proper safeguards in place and when you completely ignore all indications of negative impacts.”
Sword also believes some drug policies fail to prioritize the safety of vulnerable individuals.
“Greed is the ultimate evil in society and this just proves it,” he said. “We don’t care about these drugs getting into the wrong hands as long as I get my money.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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