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The Worm Is Turning by MARY BARRY, MD
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
-William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services, might have more than just that pork tapeworm in his brain.
Maybe it’ s a snake.
Perhaps it is a boa constrictor, choking off just enough oxygen that he can still walk upright, but not think at the same time.
As late as 2023, during his campaign, he claimed on Fox News that autism comes from vaccines. 1 Later he denied this. He has been an ongoing supporter of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who caused an uproar with his confident accusation that autism arises from vaccines. Dr. Wakefield’ s accusations have been thoroughly debunked. But hey, what’ s a few facts when you can recruit the anti-vaxxer vote while running for president?
The New York Times’ Christina Jewett and Sheryl Stolberg reported on Dec. 13, 2024, that the attorney Aaron Siri, who was helping RFK pick federal health officials, had petitioned the FDA to withdraw approval of the polio vaccine. He had also“ filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines, had challenged Covid vaccine mandates around the U. S., and sued federal agencies for disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals.”
I remember getting the polio vaccine – the oral one – in the first grade, but I also got the 1955 shot, because Dr. Patrick Hess, our beloved pediatrician in New Albany who shepherded all seven of us to adulthood, told Mother we needed it. I also remember that all of us were confined to our own yard only for an entire summer when I was 6 – no Fountaine Ferry nickel rides or swimming pool at ALL – no playing in the Monsours’ yard down by the riverbank – no walking the floodwall even! – because of polio.
I took care of various people who had survived polio. They remembered the iron lung with both fear and gratitude. They remembered their mothers trying not to cry. Every one of them suffered from sleep apnea and many of them had lower limb weakness to some degree. Several had lost siblings to polio complications. At the old Children’ s Hospital, where I was admitted with an infection at age 5, I remember asking the orderly who was carrying me in his arms down to X-ray,“ What are those big things?” They were the stored iron lung machines.
RFK Jr. also proclaimed during a 2023 Lex Fridman podcast that“ vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.” He has contradicted himself on this at various times as well, proclaiming that placebo-controlled trials were not done. In fact, vaccines undergo extensive testing for safety during development. In a 2022 meta-analysis from Boston’ s Beth Israel Deaconess of 12 placebo-controlled COVID-19 vaccine trials involving more than 22,000 people, lead author Julia W. Haas, PhD, noted that 35 % of the people who’ d received the first dose of placebo reported fever, headache and fatigue, while 46 % of the vaccine recipients noted side effects. With subsequent dosing, those getting the real vaccine noted even more side effects, with 73 % noting local site effects and 61 % systemic issues, while the placebo recipients noted only 32 % and 12 %, respectively.
The fact that the placebo folks’ complaints eased off over time made me smile. I think maybe they found it harder and harder to conjure up symptoms, and began to embrace the reality of their non-reactions.
Secretary Kennedy has also previously claimed, on a Joe Rogan podcast, that WiFi causes not only cancer, but“ leaky brain.”( Maybe he confused that with prostate issues – he is old enough.) Once, when appearing with Elon Musk, he wondered aloud if antidepressants were to blame for school shootings. He has been particularly exercised about the water supply. He once told a Canadian interviewer, Jordan Peterson, that“ chemicals in the water supply could turn
36 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE OPINION