6 questions medical experts want RFK Jr. to address during his Senate confirmation hearings

America faces the Senate confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services. He would then become the de facto leader of the nation’s public health efforts.

Kennedy’s track record as an anti-vaccine advocate and spreader of conspiracy theories about infectious diseases, some truly bizarre, combined with his inexperience administering a vast and complex set of health-care agencies, should render him unfit for this office.

Many, including more than 75 Nobel laureates, are urging the Senate to reject his nomination. To better judge how to vote, we — a professor of microbiology and immunology and a professor of medicine — would like to hear senators ask Kennedy the following questions:

Mr. Kennedy: In 2019 you visited the island nation of Samoa and advised the government not to vaccinate against measles, alleging that the vaccine was itself responsible for triggering a measles outbreak. Predictably, a devastating measles outbreak occurred, killing over 80 Samoans, mostly young children, and sickening nearly 6,000 others. You have denied any connection to this tragedy. Do you accept responsibility for your part in these avoidable deaths and injuries, and if not, why not?

Mr. Kennedy: From early 2021 onward, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines were available nationwide, but a significant number of Americans rejected them, and 200,000-plus avoidable COVID deaths occurred among unvaccinated people. In a phenomenon that became known as “Red COVID,” vaccine refusal rates were higher in counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020, driving the greater rate of fatal COVID infections in those counties. Vaccine rejection was correlated with consuming misinformation about mRNA vaccine safety, notably on Fox News. You are among the most prolific spreaders of misinformation about COVID vaccines, and the nonprofit you founded, Children’s Health Defense, profited from that misinformation. Will you publicly apologize to the relatives of those who listened to the vaccine misinformation you spread and succumbed to largely avoidable deaths because of it?

Mr. Kennedy: You have said to National Institutes of Health scientists: “God bless you all. Thank you for public service. We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” Do you think infectious disease is a thing of the past? We ask because we may face a devastating H5N1 bird flu pandemic in the coming years. One of your supporters, ex-CDC Director Robert Redfield, has said the bird flu mortality rate could be “between 20 and 50 percent,” which is about a hundred-fold more than we saw with the COVID virus. If this awful scenario happened under your watch, would you introduce standard public health measures against transmission of a dangerous respiratory virus? And would you support the rapid development of mRNA vaccines as the best tool to curtail the pandemic? If not, what would you do as Americans started dying in droves?

Mr. Kennedy: You promote the consumption of raw milk. Raw milk can be dangerous, as it contains harmful bacteria and viruses. Among those is the avian influenza (”bird flu”) virus. The FDA reports that “since 1987, there have been 143 reported outbreaks of illness — some involving miscarriages, stillbirths, kidney failure and deaths — associated with consumption of raw milk and raw milk products that were contaminated with pathogenic bacteria.” The FDA also says that “decades ago, pasteurization of milk was adopted as a basic public health measure to kill dangerous bacteria. This measure largely eliminated the risk of getting sick from one of the most important staples of the American diet.” As there are clear risks associated with raw milk, and no definitively proven benefits, why are you willing to put consumers’ health in jeopardy?

Mr. Kennedy: You want fluoride removed from the nation’s water supply. It is indisputable that fluoride protects children’s teeth from decay. The Canadian city of Calgary experimented with fluoride removal but reversed its decision after seeing what happened to local children’s teeth over the next decade. Dental surgery can be high-cost, with poorly paid workers most at financial risk, as they are the most reliant on tap water. There is no proven harm associated with fluoride at the doses used in the water supply. Why do you promote this damaging change to public health?

Mr. Kennedy: In your 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci, you cite the long-discredited AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg as saying that “heavy recreational drug use in gay men and drug addicts was the real cause of immune deficiency” among AIDS victims of the 1980s and 1990s. You also asserted that HIV/AIDS was a medical conspiracy. Do you still believe that HIV does not cause AIDS? And if so, do you think HIV-infected people should no longer receive lifesaving antiretroviral drugs?

In addition to his own questionable track record, Kennedy is poised to lead a public health team of highly dubious competence with troubling records. While the Senate should pose hard questions to all his team members, Kennedy’s leadership role means his confirmation hearing is the most important.

John P. Moore is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. Jonathan Howard is an associate professor of medicine at New York Langone Medical College in New York City.