Medical journal The Lancet blasts RFK Jr.’s health work as a failure

The medical journal The Lancet did not pull any punches in a scathing editorial on Robert F. Kennedy Jr, calling the anti-vaccine activist’s first year as US Health Secretary “a failure by most measures, especially his own.”

The Lancet is one of the world’s oldest academic medical journals still in publication and one of the most cited sources of peer-reviewed medical research. But it is also well-known for publishing an infamous study by prominent anti-vaccine activist and disgraced ex-physician Andrew Wakefield, which falsely claimed to find a link between vaccines and autism. The Lancet retracted the study more than a decade later.

Kennedy is among the prominent anti-vaccine activists who continue to embrace the thoroughly debunked claim, along with other dangerous conspiracy theories. The Lancet assailed Kennedy for spreading misinformation as the country’s top health official and politicizing health policy at the expense of vulnerable Americans, including children.

“The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in one year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm,” the journal’s editorial board wrote in its latest issue.

The journal’s board noted that when Kennedy first took the role a year ago, he laid out noble ambitions of “radical transparency” and “gold-standard science.” But within days Kennedy appeared to abandon those ideals. He rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments on federal actions, summarily dismissed expert advisors and scientific experts, issued altered health recommendations that run counter to decades of scientific evidence, and shut down programs studying critical health issues, such as air pollution and cancer.

As secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—all of which Kennedy is currently driving into the ground, according to the Lancet. His “politicization at the NIH, FDA, and CDC is imperiling the future of US science and innovation and throttling the public health enterprise that keeps the country safe today,” the board wrote.

Kennedy has orchestrated an unprecedented overhaul of the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations, which has been rejected by more than half of US states. He granted $1.6 million for a vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau that the World Health Organization called “unethical,” comparing it to the shameful Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Under Kennedy, HHS has “made a habit of throwing good money after bad science,” and elevated “junk science and fringe beliefs,” the editorial states. Meanwhile, promising research, including on mRNA technology, and critical disease monitoring, such as of explosive cases of measles and pertussis (whooping-cough), are being abandoned or neglected.

In all, The Lancet joined a chorus of voices in the medical and scientific community calling for Kennedy’s resignation and for Congress to hold him accountable.

While the medical journal had no kind words for Kennedy, the feeling is mutual. In the past, Kennedy has assailed top medical journals, including The Lancet, as “corrupt” for being influenced by the pharmaceutical industry—a common attack Kennedy uses against his critics.