Republicans have a long and despicable history of scapegoating one group after another: Blacks, liberals, Hispanics, gays, Asians, women, Muslims, environmentalists, lesbians.  

And now they have added scientists generally and doctors in particular to their list of hated targets.

Since taking office on January 20, Donald Trump has virtually declared war on the American medical establishment.  

Summarizing Trump’s first 100 days in office, Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, warned: 

• “Trump’s health administrators fired or forced resignations of senior staff, including the top vaccine regulator at the FDA, directors of many NIH institutes, and senior FDA staff involved in the regulation of food, tobacco and new drugs.”
• “The administration has also proposed consolidation of many HHS agencies with near elimination of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).”
• “The Trump Administration stripped vital public health information from HHS, CDC and FDA websites and abandoned all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.”
• “Trump issued an executive order announcing his intent to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), suspending funding and other support and recalling U.S. government personnel assigned to work with WHO—to the detriment of several global health programs and emergency response efforts.”

• “Trump’s  allies in Congress are seeking to cut Medicare and Medicaid, with dangerous implications for access to health care, particularly for seniors and people with disabilities.”
• “The Trump Administration is threatening to further privatize Medicare, threatening to hinder access to care and put the long term health of the program in jeopardy.”
• “Trump and his allies in Congress want to give Big Pharma its top demand to undermine the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program—blocking seniors’ and people with disabilities’ access to Medicare-negotiated prices until 13 years after a drug is approved.”

On September 4, for the first time since he took office as Secretary of Health and Human Services on February 13, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. faced his critics at the Senate Finance Committee.

Defending the wholesale firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he said: “The people at the CDC who oversaw that process—who put masks on our children, who closed our schools—are the people who will be leaving. ”

He called the United States the “sickest country in the world” due to the prevalence of chronic diseases:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Kennedy attacked the integrity of Susan Monarez, whom he fired as CDC director after less than a month on the job. She had been nominated by Trump, endorsed by Kennedy and confirmed by a Senate vote in July.

Kennedy claimed: “I asked her: ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said ‘No.’ If you had an employee who told you they weren’t trustworthy, would you ask them to resign?” 

In testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions  on September 17, Monarez offered a different explanation for her firing: She refused to cede to Kennedy’s demands to pre-approve vaccine recommendations for the public and he wanted her to fire career scientists.

“He just wanted blanket approval. Even under pressure, I could not replace evidence with ideology.

“He called CDC the most corrupt federal agency in the world, emphasized that CDC employees were horrible people. He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don’t care.”

Susan Monarez

In late August, Kennedy told her he had “already spoken with the White House several times about having” her removed, she said.

Kennedy used much of his testimony to lie or lob insults, rather than refute his critics with facts.

On August 9, a 30-year-old Georgia man, Patrick Joseph White, using an automatic rifle, had fired over 180 rounds on the CCD headquarters in Atlanta, breaking about 150 windows.

Influenced by anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, he believed the COVID-19 vaccine had made him depressed and suicidal.

When Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock asked Kennedy if his disparaging remarks about CDC employees could have instigated the shooting, Kennedy retorted: “Are you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump?”

“Why have you acted behind closed doors to overrule scientists and limit the freedom of parents to choose the COVID vaccine for their children?” asked Democratic New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan.

Kennedy: “This is crazy talk.”

It wasn’t. In many states, pharmacists cannot legally administer vaccines unless they are endorsed by the CDC’s advisory panel.

During 2020—Donald Trump’s final year of his first term as President—COVID-19 emerged as the greatest threat to worldwide health since the 1919 Spanish influenza.

Coronavirus

To this crisis, Trump responded with:

• Lies about its dangers
• Attacks on medical authorities who urged masking and social distancing
• Inciting his followers to ignore governors’ “lockdown” orders to stop the spread
• Thefts of medical supplies from Blue states
• Quack cures (bleach, UV light)
• Demands to “Re-open the country!” and
• “Learn to live with it.”

At least 400,000 Americans died as a result. 

Through his wholesale gutting of America’s healthcare system—once considered the best in the world—Trump and his anti-science accomplices are setting the United States on a collision course with the next deadly epidemic.