Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, Science
Britt Jones
Robert F. Kennedy Jr has come under fire after telling people not to 'trust the experts'.
The US health secretary has been a controversial figure since he was appointed to his role in Donald Trump’s administration.
So far, Kennedy has made some brazen claims, particularly surrounding autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such as claiming that people with autism will 'never hold a job or date', alleging a link between circumcision and autism, and pledging to 'eliminate' the cause of the 'autism epidemic'.
Just last month, President Trump held a press conference to put forth unsubstantial claims that pregnant women consuming Tylenol, or paracetamol, could cause autism in children, which Tylenol have denied.
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As well as this, the 71-year-old has also previously repeated misinformation about vaccine safety, particularly the false claim that vaccines are linked to autism, and has claimed beef tallow is healthier than seed oils, which has not been proven.
And in an interview with ex-Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson, he said that ‘we need to stop trusting the experts’.
During his appearance on Carlson's YouTube channel back in June, he went on to claim that at the 'beginning of Covid', people were told not to 'any investigation yourself', adding: “Trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy – it’s a feature of religion or totalitarianism."
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Kennedy said that it is 'one of the burdens of citizenship' for people to 'do their own research and make their own determinations about things'.
However, people on social media aren't in agreement, as one person wrote: "So we need everyone to get their own advanced degree? Or just listen to him? What is he even saying?"
Another said: "Oh we are supposed to trust RFK Junior to be in charge of our health because he is not an expert, is that it?"
A third commented: "Yes, because trusting non-experts is so much more accurate. Why bother with education when we can trust the lay person with complex facts and data.....”
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Two months after his interview with Carlson, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller went on to call RFK Jr 'one of the world’s foremost experts on public health' after praising his work within Trump’s administration.
Miller said: “[RFK Jr] is working hard to restore the credibility and the integrity of [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] as a scientific organisation committed to the scientific method, and getting to the root causes of the public health epidemic in this country.”
It's not the only thing that Kennedy has been called out for recently, as he also made a bizarre false claim regarding pregnant women's anatomy.