A gaggle of 77 Nobel laureates — a coalition from the fields of medication, physics, chemistry and economics — wrote an open letter to the Senate on Monday urging lawmakers to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid to steer the Division of Health and Human Companies.
“Placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of DHHS would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in health science,” the letter, obtained by The New York Occasions, reads.
President-elect Donald Trump tapped Kennedy final month, saying the person would quickly play “a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives.” However he didn’t point out Kennedy’s lengthy marketing campaign in opposition to the science surrounding vaccines or his proposals to take away fluoride from consuming water.
These stances, the Nobel Prize winners wrote, needs to be disqualifying.
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“The proposal to place Mr. Kennedy in charge of the federal agencies responsible for protecting the health of American citizens and for conducting the medical research that benefits our country and the rest of humanity has been widely criticized on multiple grounds,” the doc reads. “In addition to his lack of credentials or relevant experiences in medicine, science, public health or administration, Mr. Kennedy has been an opponent of many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines.”
“The leader of DHHS should continue to nurture and improve — not threaten — these important and highly respected institutions and their employees.”
Richard Roberts, the winner of the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine in 1993, told the Times it was the first time in recent memory a group of laureates had gathered to oppose a Cabinet nominee. Roberts added that laureates tend to shy away from politics if possible, but described the Trump administration’s efforts to attack science as “very damaging.”
“You have to stand up and protect it,” he told the paper.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition rejected the laureates’ claims in a statement to the Times.
“Americans are sick and tired of the elites telling them what to do and how to do it,” the spokesperson said. “Our healthcare system in this country is broken, Mr. Kennedy will enact President Trump’s agenda to restore the integrity of our healthcare and Make America Healthy Again.”
