Summary

Over 15,000 doctors, through the Committee to Protect Health Care, urged the Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, citing his anti-vaccine advocacy, promotion of conspiracy theories, and lack of qualifications.

Critics, including Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, warn his leadership would endanger public health. Supporters claim opposition is driven by pharmaceutical interests.

Kennedy’s confirmation would require near-unanimous Republican support in the Senate.

Advocacy groups are campaigning against his appointment, emphasizing his alleged role in spreading misinformation during past public health crises.

  • Vertelleus
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    15 hours ago

    They should try bribing the Republicans, that’s how you get results.

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    That’s great and all, but it’s not going to happen. In fact, all the hate will only cause him to grow even stronger and dumber.

    • takeda@lemm.ee
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      17 hours ago

      I cannot believe there is even consideration about giving him preemptive pardon.

      Like, it’s not even clear what possible crime he committed, but since they might go after him we should issue a pardon just in case.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Many of them have been whipped up into a murderous frenzy over Fauci. Now, that’s the dumbasses yokels in the deplorable base. How many of the elites in the qon power structure want to go after him, who knows. I"m sure donvict had his feelings hurt about something related to Fauci because Fauci is part of the reality-based community, so maybe he might let it happen.

    • subignition@fedia.io
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      18 hours ago

      You know what, you have to respect them for trying. The alternative is staying silent and accepting this without any show of resistance at all.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        12 hours ago

        Sometimes it’s hard to know which battles to pick.

        Resisting this appointment kinda forces Trump to double down, because it was an election promise. It also diminishes drs credibility in future matters. “Drs moan about everything”.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Many of them seriously would love to see him literally hanged alongside Biden, Kamala, Pence, Obama, Hillary…the dumbasses are all convinced he did something wrong to donvict, themselves, the country. You know, because, repeat after me, like all good parrots do: “gain of function! gain of function!”

  • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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    16 hours ago

    The only thing he’s right about is the junk we have in our food and chemicals that are banned in the EU but allowed to be in our food

    • madeinthebackseat@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      There are also many ingredients banned in the US that aren’t in the EU. This trend of focusing on food ingredients misses the bigger picture.

      While processed food is generally garbage, our food supply is generally safe, the real issue is healthy, whole foods aren’t accessible enough.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      That’s the sad thing. RFK is “right” about a lot, not just about health but about what happened in the election, but that doesn’t make the bad bundled with him OK.

      Some people are crazy or corrupt and should absolutely not hold office, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate points they raise… But apparently we can’t have it that way. We go all in someone or bury, nothing in between

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        15 hours ago

        You are correct that it doesn’t necessarily invalidate points they raise. But if you’re dealing with somebody who is crazy or corrupt AND they represent the party famous for arguing in bad faith, it’s probably a waste of time to evaluate whether or not you can trust a given thing they say.

    • huginn@feddit.it
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      14 hours ago

      And the EU allows food that we don’t in ours, like Cyclamate. Raw milk and unwashed eggs are all perfectly legal too.

      They’re not perfect.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        unwashed eggs are all perfectly legal too.

        Becsuse washing eggs makes them spoil easier as it ruins the bloom which protects the eggs from pathogens.

        The risk here is so non-existent, that I can safely eat my eggs raw. This is an official stance of the Finnish health authorities.

        I trust them saying that.

        But if RFK said that about American eggs, I would laugh out loud.

        Most American bread sold here has to be marketed as dessert, because of the high sugar content. I mean, there really isn’t demand for it, but you’ll sometimes see some in some novel “America” shelves/sections.

        German tries American coke for the first time (00:58)

      • kungen@feddit.nu
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        12 hours ago

        I, too, normally eat my eggs with the shell still attached.

        And you realize that egg shells are porous? Unwashed eggs are sealed, and that’s one of the reasons why Europe can sell eggs without even refrigeration.

        • huginn@feddit.it
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          5 hours ago

          Unwashed eggs have a much shorter shelf life before the salmonella gets through the porous shell.

          The EU sells unrefrigerated eggs because they’re fresher - they spoil significantly faster than American eggs.

      • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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        13 hours ago

        Sure, never said they were. But they ban alot of chemicals that are harmful and judging on health outcomes and obesity rates they seem to have it better.

        • huginn@feddit.it
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          5 hours ago

          EU health and obesity rates have way more to do with urbanism than diet and health outcomes compared to the USA is such a useless comparison. America’s trying to kill you off the moment you get sick. Pay or die: yeah no wonder it’s such a shit show.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    19 hours ago

    Doctors are about to get the climate scientist treatment. It’s not a Cassandra curse. It’s not that they don’t believe you. They just don’t see the consequences affecting them personally, so they don’t care.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Also, the dumbasses seem to think using terms like “herd immunity” only confirms the garbage that the likes of Alex Jones is filling their empty heads with. “Herd immunity! That’s how the global elites think about all of us! Just a herd to be culled until there is only 500,000,000 people on the planet, just like the Georgia Guidestones says!”

  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Apparently they didn’t follow trump the first time around. The surest way to get him to do something is to tell him not to.

  • Kecessa
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    17 hours ago

    Pfff, doctors, what do they know about health, am I right?

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The right seems to despise expertise of nearly all kinds, most especially if it involves going to a university.

      So yeah, if doctors tell them something that hurts their feelings (like wear a mask, get vaccinated, meat is bad for you, alcohol is bad for you) they are going to get just as butthurt about that kind of expertise as they will about scientists telling them that evolution and global warming are real things…

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Quick question. Honest question. How many doctors are there in the USA? I feel like this headline could have been more impactful if it gave an idea of what percentage of the medical field feels this way. 15,000 doctors, across all 50 states…maybe I’m wrong, this is just a gut feeling based on nothing, but that seems low. Feels like some of the bigger states could have 15,000 doctors by themselves.

    I’m not in any way defending RFK. I’m just saying this particular story seems like a non-story at those numbers.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        As a person who’s organized petitions for widely felt issues, the impact isn’t strictly from a raw percentage of participation (though it’s a significant factor when that number is large). The impact comes from the number of people involved. Of the roughly 1 million doctors in the country, 1% were so against the concept that they chose to take direct action.

        If that many people were moved to action, how many are against it but not ready or willing to fight? How many felt it wouldn’t matter if they signed? How many more didn’t hear about it?

        • Kecessa
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          17 hours ago

          Imagine if 4m citizens signed a petition, I don’t think anyone would be arguing that “but it’s not even 2% of the population!”

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Yeah, it’s still impactful, I just also got curious about the number of doctors in the US and figured it was silly to look it up and not share.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Right, I’m sure many doctors are well aware of what demons the right are. I could see some organized effort to target doctors and sic the insane RW nutjobs on them in a campaign of stochastic terrorism.

          That, or lean on people with the ability to punish them at their jobs, or have some way to make them unemployed.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          At the same time it’s risky to use small percentages of big populations even if it looks big. If you cast a net big enough, you can drum up thousands of pretty much anyone for pretty much anything (I wonder how many nurses you or doctors you could get to say they’re anti-vaxx). Not saying this doesn’t hold water but just take with a grain of salt.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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            16 hours ago

            Agreed, and the right wing definitely does organize disinfo campaigns that exploit this. I remember the stupid anti-science right wingers trying to make a lot of hay with the Oregon Petition. Sure, they had a lot of people that had no business weighing in, but they had PhDs in that list, ya’ll, and they had, get this, over 31,000 of them overall, ya’ll!

            The general population is not known for either their critical thinking skills, knowing the difference between engineering and science, and their numeracy, so it was a clever scheme…

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    “All those doctors are a buncha elitists, I tell ya! I’m on the macho manly carnivore diet and even the know-it-all doc says I only need THREE statins!”