“What the fuck is wrong with Jared Polis?” “Claw your way back to sanity or find a new job, governor.” “To show up with good faith assumptions about this incoming administration is to be delusional in disservice to your constituents.” “I hope Polis realizes that his political career is dead.”
These are a few of the text messages and social media comments I collected in the aftermath of Gov. Polis’s effusive praise for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., following Donald Trump’s announcement that RFK will head the Department of Health and Human Services. So what’s going on here? Did Polis betray the people of Colorado or are his critics overreacting?
RFK’s Long History of Conspiracy Mongering
Let us begin with a brief, partial review of RFK’s long history of conspiracy mongering about health-related issues. Here I’m not going to review Trump’s own lengthy record of conspiracy mongering about everything from election fraud to Haitian immigrants eating pets, but we should bear in mind that one thing that attracted Trump to RFK, and vice versa, was their penchant for spinning wild conspiracy theories.
In 2006, RFK claimed, as Forbes summarizes, “that the preservative thimerosal, which has largely been phased out of modern vaccine formulas, appears to be responsible for a rise in autism diagnoses,” and that government, in RFK’s words, “knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children.” As Forbes summarizes, RFK’s claim “has been thoroughly debunked, with a consensus among a number of certified health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and more, found no credible link between vaccines and autism.”
In August 2020, RFK speculated baselessly that the Covid pandemic might be a “plandemic,” meaning “that it was planned from the outset, it’s part of a sinister scheme,” the Bulwark reports. RFK said, “I can’t tell you the answer to that. I don’t have enough evidence. A lot of it feels very planned to me. I don’t know. I will tell you this: If you create these mechanisms for control, they become weapons of obedience for authoritarian regimes no matter how beneficial or innocent the people who created them.”
Scientists continue to debate whether the coronavirus that caused the pandemic arose from bad lab practices or from human contact with sick animals. A 2023 paper concludes “the available evidence favors” the “zoonotic-origin” (animal) theory. Regardless, RFK stretches far beyond claims that the virus might have come from a lab to speculate that it was engineered specifically to cause a pandemic. RFK’s remarks have all the markings of classic conspiracy mongering, stepping well beyond known facts to invoking some sinister plot by shadowy figures.
In June 2023, RFK baselessly said that scientists working on HIV-AIDS “were doing phony, crooked studies to develop a cure that killed people without really being able to understand what HIV was, and pumping up fear about it constantly, not really understanding whether it was causing AIDS.” See New York magazine. In fact, scientists know that HIV causes AIDS, and scientists working in the field have produced effective treatments that have saved millions of lives.
In August 2023, RFK said, without any factual basis, “Covid-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” The New York Times rightly characterizes RFK’s remarks as bigoted. (See also the New York Post.) As the Anti-Defamation league reports, at least one white nationalist group made explicit the apparent implication of RFK’s remarks that Jews and Chinese are behind the pandemic.
Just this month, reports Forbes, RFK made “the baseless claims that ‘fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.’ Limited fluoride in water is known to reduce dental decay.” The grain of truth to RFK’s claims is that excessive amounts of fluoride from natural sources seem to be associated with modestly lower IQ in children (see NPR, STAT, and The Studies Show). But the recent study behind this claim does not provide grounds to call into question the known health benefits of adding modest amounts of fluoride to water that does not naturally contain much of it.
The appropriate response to the announcement of an unqualified conspiracy monger as head of a major U.S. health agency, a selection made mainly for political payback for RFK’s support of Trump’s candidacy, is shock, horror, and anger. Reasonable people should do what they can to block RFK’s appointment to the position and, if he gets it anyway, to mitigate the damage that he does from the position.
That RFK may be right about some issues is not a sufficient reason to endorse or praise him. Compare: If conspiracist Alex Jones, who promoted the falsehood that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, says that two plus two equals four, a responsible person does not praise Jones for promoting numeracy. Rather, the responsible reply is to condemn RFK for his dangerous lies and to point out that, even on issues on which RFK may be right, we should turn to responsible, reality-based advocates of the ideas and positions in question.
That is not the approach that Polis took.
Polis praises RFK
Following is the entirety of Polis’s November 14 comments to Twitter/X about RFK:
I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint [RFK] to [HHS]. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 [link] and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health. Before you mock him or disagree, I want to share with you some quotes that if he follows through show why I’m excited:
“Level the playing field for Americans internationally on drug costs . . . cap drug prices so that companies can’t charge Americans substantially more than Europeans pay.” [link] YES! Colorado currently has an application just SITTING at FDA for us to import low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and we just need their approval.
“In some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA that are—that have to go, that are not doing their job, they’re not protecting our kids.” [link] YES! The entire nutrition regime is dominated by big corporate ag rather than human health and they do more harm than good
“We’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.” [link] YES! We have tried unsuccessfully to better protect people and pollinators from harmful pesticides here in Colorado and we need all the help we can get to take on big chemical companies and improve human health and the environment! For our pollinators and our people!
He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again and I hope that we can finally make progress on these important issues.
I will get to the substance of Polis’s comments. But let us first focus on what Polis does not mention in these comments — that RFK is a conspiracy — mongering hack with dangerous anti-scientific presumptions. Someone does not have to be wrong about absolutely everything to be dangerous. Indeed, bogus conspiracy theories thrive off of relating just enough facts, ripped from context, to make the conspiracy theory seem superficially plausible. (Of course, there are real conspiracies; for example, when Trump’s supporters violently invaded the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power, that was a criminal conspiracy. Conspiracy mongering refers to promoting bogus conspiracy theories unsupported by facts.)
After facing immediate backlash, Polis published the following qualification:
Science must remain THE cornerstone of our nation’s health policy and the science-backed decision to get vaccinated improves public health and safety. But if as a country we follow the science we would also be far more concerned about the impact of pesticides on public health, ag policy on nutrition, and the lack of access to prescription drugs due to drug high prices. This is why I am for a major shake-up in institutions like the FDA that have been barriers to lowering drug costs and promoting healthy food choices. Lest there by any doubt, I am vaccinated as is my family. I will hold any HHS Secretary to the same high standard of protecting and improving public health.
A few days later, Polis reposted commentary from Sen. Cory Booker and RFK.
Booker wrote:
For years I have been raising the alarm of the dangers of our current food system. We’re prioritizing corporations feeding us unhealthy products instead of family farmers growing fresh, healthy foods – and we let too many dangerous chemicals flood our food system. We all must come together to build a system that works for all.
To this, RFK replied:
Thanks Senator [Booker] for your long history of leadership on this issue. You have been a champion, particularly against the systematic poisoning of Black and Hispanic Americans with processed and chemically laden foods through the SNAP and school lunch programs. Let’s work together to end this.
Polis then added:
Thank you [Booker] for keeping an open mind on [RFK] and his fight against “corporations feeding us unhealthy products while flooding us with dangerous chemicals.’ Push back on some of his unscientific personal opinions to ensure that he doesn’t make his (sometimes bizarre) personal opinions into official policy, but his stated intent to make America healthier and reduce chronic disease through better diet and nutrition would save lives AND save people money on healthcare.
Polis also linked to a Politico article saying that “Booker sounds like RFK” on certain issues. Forbes published a video on November 19 in which Booker answers a question explicitly about RFK. Here’s what he says:
So let’s be clear. And people . . . I don’t understand why this isn’t the front line. The number-one killer of Americans . . . is diet-related diseases. We’re at a point right now in America where one out of every five dollars in our economy is going to health care. One out of every three of our government dollars is going to health care. . . . Our government has a food system where we subsidize everything that makes us sick, and nothing, very little, that makes us healthy. Ninety-three percent of our ag subsidies go to the stuff in junk food, and only about seven percent goes to the stuff that makes us healthy. So think about this for a second. My kids in Newark walk to a bodega, and they find a twinkie-like product cheaper than an apple, not because of the free market, but because of government subsidies. But, worse than this, our farmers are getting crushed. . . . We have a consolidated, multinational corporation ag industry that has more powerful lobbyists down here [in Congress] than anybody except maybe the defense industry, that protects a system in our ag department that is driving small family farmers out of business by the thousands every year. . . . Is RFK right about the challenges? Yeah. I’ve heard him say a lot of things that are absolutely right. And I have concerns, obviously, about having people who are leading in our country who aren’t based in science and fact. . . . I have concerns about the nominee [RFK], but, I tell you, when he speaks about the issues I was just speaking about, we’re talking out of the same playbook. . . . I have real concerns about anybody who is going to put [mis]information out there, that’s going to undermine the safety of our kids. So I have real concerns about that. . . . Parents all around the country can’t understand why there are chemicals that are being put into our foods that we’re serving our kids that are banned in other countries. Why are we spraying things on crops that we know are known carcinogens, that have hormone disruptors? So we are in a crisis in this country that nobody is talking about enough.
Polis also offered additional remarks to 9News on November 19:
RFK . . . has a lot of false things that he has said and does say. Can he separate those incorrect personal beliefs from the work he does on chronic disease, nutrition, and taking on big pharma? I hope so, and, for the sake of our country, I pray so.
Evaluating Polis’s Praise of RFK
RFK is a dangerous conspiracy monger who has no proper business serving as dog catcher, much less as the head of HHS. Even if RFK is incidentally right about some health-related matters, we should turn to qualified experts, not to the delusional RFK, for health-related advice and policy recommendations. Obviously, RFK is in the national spotlight, rather than a random YouTube crank, only because of his family name, and because he abandoned his own political ambitions to help Trump win the election. That is the message that Polis should have conveyed.
That said, given that Congressional Republicans probably will back RFK for the position, Polis is right that we do need to look at RFK’s likely policy positions. Now that I have firmly condemned RFK as a dangerous conspiracy monger, and not muddied that point by offering context-free praise for the man, I think I have set the context for proceeding with some of the substantive issues.
RFK and Booker are hardly original in questioning U.S. agricultural subsidies. Such federal spending has been criticized by libertarians and free-market conservatives for decades. See, for example, a 2023 report from the Cato Institute.
Nor is RFK a leader in questioning U.S. nutritional guidance. The popular book Good Calories, Bad Calories, which questioned low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets, came out in 2007.
It’s not like RFK is some sort of thought leader when it comes to health. There’s not a doctor in the country who will tell a patient, “What you really need to do is exercise less and eat more sugar.” We basically know how to be healthy. The problem is that many people choose to be unhealthy. (Obviously many health problems are caused or exacerbated by things other than diet and exercise.) Sure, people continue to debate the optimal balance of fats and carbohydrates, but everyone agrees that we should eat quality food. Salmon and broccoli beat a candy bar.
Other things equal, obviously it is better not to use pesticides (or herbicides for that matter). But other things are not equal. Organic food is more expensive. But pesticides can remain on the foods that we eat. UC Davis Health does find problems with pesticide exposure:
Increased exposure to pesticides can lead to increased risk of ADHD and autism. It is also linked to reduced cognitive skills, ability to learn and memory. Exposure to pesticides may lead to the development of Parkinson’s disease, fertility issues and cognitive decline later in life. There is also a potential link between cancer and pesticides. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified three common pesticides as carcinogenic. The primary exposure in humans was through diet.
A responsible approach to pesticides looks at the relevant scientific findings regarding exposure at different levels and considers benefits as well as costs of using pesticides in light of available alternatives.
The remarks by RFK, Polis, and Booker might seem to imply that there is something per se wrong with corporate agriculture. We should definitely take Booker’s advice and investigate how U.S. policies distort the ag market. However, given the potential advantages of industrialization, automation, and economies of scale, we ought not come out of the gate biased against large food-producing corporations.
Notice that RFK, Polis, and Booker largely deny the agency of American consumers. No one is forcing the typical American to consume some 60 pounds of sugar per year. People are free to spend extra to buy organic produce if they want. They are free to read labels and avoid buying whatever foods they regard as unhealthy. Personally, I walk 10,000 steps per day except for days when I lift weights, eat lots of vegetables, avoid processed vegetable fats such as soybean and canola (as RFK and others suggest) in favor of fruit fats (olive, avocado, coconut) and animal fats, and tightly limit my consumption of sugar and alcohol. I also stay current on my vaccines. And I reject two-bit hucksters of misinformation such as RFK. Insofar as RFK is right (as a broken clock sometimes is right), I don’t need RFK to save me. I can think for myself and make good decisions for me and my family. Recognizing the agency of consumers is compatible with fixing bad government policies.
RFK could hamper vaccines through such moves as promoting lawsuits against vaccine makers and discouraging authorization of new vaccines; see reports by STAT and the New York Times. We should bear in mind the context: Covid vaccines saved some fourteen million lives. “The measles vaccine has saved nearly 94 million lives over the past 50 years,” reports Scientific American, and “vaccines against 14 common pathogens have saved 154 million lives over the past five decades.” Notably, reports the AP, RFK promoted anti-vaccine propaganda in Samoa, and “a few months later, a measles epidemic broke out in Samoa, killing 83 people, mostly infants and children in a population of about 200,000.” RFK denied culpability.
If Polis wants to talk about the problems of regulatory capture, unintended consequences of government policy, and personal health choices, great. He should do so in a way that does not lend moral support to RFK’s dangerous conspiracy mongering.
