This week the New York Times Opinion (Left bias) published two opinions criticizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Center for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) and calling for his resignation — one from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and one from nine former CDC officials.
RFK Jr. published an op-ed of his own in the Wall Street Journal Opinion (Lean Right) Tuesday saying the CDC had squandered public trust and “The path forward is clear: Restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”
Last week, CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired just weeks after she was sworn in.
Voices on the left agreed with Sanders and the former CDC officials that RFK Jr. is a destructive force in healthcare. On the right, opinions were split, with some praising the changes the Health and Human Services Secretary has made and others agreeing with the left that his views on vaccines, in particular, are beyond the pale.
In the Los Angeles Times (Lean Left) a contributor argued “MAGA has won the war on science” saying, “[Sen. Bill] Cassidy, of course, voted for [a bill that included Medicaid cuts]. And when Monarez found herself in Kennedy’s crosshairs over vaccines, Cassidy privately intervened for her, which backfired. Now, having failed to spare America this nightmare when he could have, the senator is threatening ‘oversight’ by the health committee he chairs and trying to get a Sept. 18 meeting of unqualified Kennedy-appointed vaccine ‘advisors’ postponed. This is thin gruel, especially from a doctor once committed to public health and science writ large.”
A writer in The Blaze (Right) highlighted MAHA’s top three wins, noting that Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. “While every member of the ACIP was a Biden administration appointee, the health secretary's principle concern was not the panelists' politics but rather their cozy relationships with some of the organizations they were tasked with scrutinizing.” He added that MAHA “nuked gender ideology” and “axed artificial food coloring.”
A Boston Globe (Left) columnist wrote, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s health and human services secretary, doesn’t seem to care about health or humans. If he did he wouldn’t be severely limiting access to COVID vaccines and causing grave concerns among those who want to protect themselves and their loved ones from a virus that has killed more than 1.2 million nationwide, and more than 7 million worldwide.” Adding, “There are precious few things that this nation has gotten consistently right, but vaccine development remains at or near the top of a very short list.”
Two New York Post opinion (Right) pieces disagreed with each other. Isaac Shorr (Lean Right) called Kennedy “Trump’s most destructive Cabinet member” saying he “spent decades advancing a novel’s worth of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories,” and his “appointment was a reward for his endorsement of the president last year.” A different columnist wrote of the CDC, “Once again, our governing ‘elites’ are illustrating their cluelessness about just how low the public’s opinion of them has sunk, and why. The latest example involves Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who rage-quit his post last week after his bosses…ended special rules allowing for broad use of the COVID-19 shot.”
.png.webp)
