RFK Roasted in Congress for Being Healthy
Watching senators tear into RFK like junkyard dogs on bad meat at his confirmation hearing today was almost humorous. Some were livid over his insistence upon using the broad application of science over dogma. They were almost angry that he suggested there was something wrong with the US healthcare system now that half our kids will die from touching a peanut when, in his and my green and growing days, all children ate peanut butter as the safe and nutritious go-to food for anyone. We never saw a kid even sneeze at a peanut.
Some of the senators seemed indignant that he would attribute this to a failure of the US health system. Their hackles also rose over his suggestion that the high use of Adderall and SSRI’s among children was a novelty of recent history that might suggest we are overmedicating our children and even our entire population because of the profit incentives to solve all health issues with pharmaceuticals. Senator Tina Smith became notably angry when he suggested such drugs could be dangerous.
Kennedy even had the temerity to suggest better food, exercise and community health initiatives as a pathway to improved health that he would promote. I guess those things would be the “lies and misinformation” she accused him of spreading, along with his suggestion that drugs like the SSRIs that she uses could be dangerous as apparently sometimes-helpful drugs are not ever dangerous.
Senator Elizabeth Warren kindly tossed him a softball, asking if he would swear not to go to work for Big Pharma or health insurance if he gets this post as Secretary of Health when the day comes that he retires from it. He couldn’t understand the question at first because he was wondering what she was really asking. She said it was an easy question and he said, “Who? Me? Oh, yeah, I’d be more than happy to commit to that. I don’t think any of them want to give me money, by the way.”
The conversation continued:
"You’re asking me to not sue drug companies and I’m not going to agree to that, senator," Kennedy continued, as supporters in the room cheered.
Warren replied that he could sue drug companies "as much as he wants."
Kennedy pointed out that he has written six books about litigating against these companies and lobbying agencies, which gives him
a PhD in corporate capture and how to unravel it… I know how to fix it, and there is nobody who will fix it the way that I do.
Others present would not so easily make Kennedy’s commitment to never taking money from drug companies:
Big Pharma mouthpiece Ron Wyden reads RFK Jr. the riot act for disagreeing with the "settled science" that has caused a healthcare crisis in America.
Senator Wyden had no criticism for Big Pharma abuses or the socialist healthcare programs that have exploded costs.
Kennedy noted that none of the Democrats present, who used to be his friends, pre-Trump, had any issue with him back in the days when he testified about the problem of mercury showing up in dolphins and tuna or on all the environmental issues he has been working on for his whole career.