AUGUSTA – A national healthcare nonprofit joined state representatives at the State House to protest the potential nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.
Critics took aim Tuesday at Kennedy’s anti-vaccination beliefs, along with his contention that municipal water supplies should not be fluoridated.
Rep. Dan Shagoury Shagoury said Kennedy’s name alone carries a lot of weight, which could be harmful.
“The dangers are that people will believe somebody like that, that they see the Kennedy family name and they’ve known that name for generations as something that can be trusted, and there’s a real, real danger in people just thinking, ‘Oh well he must be right, Kennedy’s always looked out for us,’” he said.
Deborah Deatrick, a former Vice President at MaineHealth and former director of the Maine Office for Dental Health, noted that the facts surrounding municipal fluoridation are settled science.
“Fluoridation is something that has been studied for about 80 years in this country,” she said. “Lots and lots of studies have confirmed the benefits of water fluoridation.”
Rep. Anne Graham called Kennedy “inexperienced and completely unqualified.” He has never worked in a government position, she said, has never run a large organization, is not a doctor, not a nurse and holds no medical degree.
“I’ve been wringing my hands at home trying to figure out how we can stop this nomination,” she said.
Graham said she genuinely worries about extreme measures such as vaccines being outlawed under Kennedy.
“We cannot go back to having a world of infectious disease, and the bottom line is, vaccines work.”
Deatrick said Kennedy represents an anti-science trend in America, and a misplaced lack of trust.
“Let’s face it: Science has made some mistakes,” she said. “Science is all about good research, and sometimes the research is good research and sometimes it’s not good research but it’s what we have right now.”
Graham asked the public to reach out to US Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Angus King (I-Maine) to oppose Kennedy’s nomination to the position.
“We need their voices,” she said. “We need to have them step up.”