A health and human services secretary who scorns health and humans
He has also instructed the National Institutes of Health to
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Oh, and he's launching a new registry to track Americans with autism, which will probably be exactly as nefarious as it sounds.
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In a sweeping wave of budget cuts, Kennedy's HHS allegedly plans to
Let's remember how we got here.
Riding on little more than his famous surname — and misty memories of his uncles, President John F. Kennedy and longtime Massachusetts senator Edward M. Kennedy, and the fondly remembered father whose name he carries — Kennedy first ran as a Democrat, then as an independent in the 2024 presidential campaign. But being a political nepo baby only took him so far and left him well short of a nomination.
When Kennedy suspended his failed campaign last August, he essentially
The future president agreed, Kennedy endorsed, and the rest is an unfolding nightmare.
At a rally weeks before the election, Trump touted that as president he would allow Kennedy to '
Kennedy crows about 'making America healthy again,' but has mostly downplayed one of the largest measles outbreaks in decades and continues to cast doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine that has saved countless lives for more than 60 years. In 2000, US health officials declared that measles had been eliminated. Now there are
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No Democrats supported Kennedy's confirmation, so Republicans own what we're seeing now. That includes the firing of about 10,000 HHS workers in March. In a familiar pattern, some staffers were reinstated about a week later. 'Personnel that should not have been cut were cut — we're reinstating them, and that was always the plan,' Kennedy said at the time.
That was not the plan. There is no plan beyond destroying the government and destabilizing every aspect of American life.
During the first Trump administration I used to say, half-jokingly, 'May we live in less stupid times.' Now, with one of the greatest dangers to the health and wellbeing of this nation being the man charged with overseeing the health and wellbeing of this nation, I say, without a hint of humor, may we just continue to live.
This is an excerpt from
, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham.
.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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