RFK Jr Is Running Away From the One Thing He’s Ever Been Right About
As recently as last year, denouncing plastics was a key part
of RFK Jr.’s political identity. Running for president as an icon of the
health-conscious, he called plastic pollution a “crisis
for human health and the environment.” He promised to support an
international plastics reduction treaty and to limit the domestic production of
plastic. He castigated President Biden for failing to fix the problem. He
espoused ambitious
solutions to the problem, alarming
the plastics industry.These positions, along with concern for food safety and commitment
to Making America Healthy Again, won support for his presidential campaign from
yoga moms and
fitness bros alike. Many of these supporters were then excited when Trump
appointed him head of Health and Human Services. His microplastics concern even
won him some grudging
credit from us here at TNR, alongside sharp
criticism of his anti-vaccine actions and other dangerous quackery,
which have indeed only gotten more troubling with the death of an unvaccinated
child in Texas last month—a tragedy that RFK seemed to minimize in
a string of bewildering falsehoods.Now, RFK’s alarmist stance on microplastics is going
mainstream. Just as RFK Jr. himself gets quieter on this topic, a host of scientific
studies are suggesting that the problem of microplastics may be far worse than
we thought—even approaching the scale of climate change as a threat to life on
earth. A preliminary Chinese study published on Monday found that
microplastics are interfering with plant photosynthesis, a problem that could
put more than 400 million people at risk of starvation. Another study,
published the next day and authored by researchers at Boston University, found that microplastics could be contributing
to the proliferation of dangerous
antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Last month, researchers analyzing the
brains of dead humans found, on average, a
spoonful of microplastics, which can’t be good. Another new paper found
that microplastics were increasingly entering our food supply through
fertilizers. All this is especially alarming given that microplastics emitted
into our bodies and into the environment have sharply increased over the last
decade and, if they continue unchecked, are
expected to double by 2040.If this were a normal administration and RFK Jr. a normal
activist, such reports would lend momentum and legitimacy to his crusade,
perhaps even leading to significant policy change. But this is not a normal administration,
and Kennedy is not a normal activist. Despite reports that one of his pet issues is even more
urgent than previously supposed, Kennedy seems to have changed the subject. Last
week he called anti-Semitism a “malady that sickens societies and kills
people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues,” as his
administration ignores or mishandles both bird flu and measles. (All forms of
bigotry can affect human health, but that statement, timed with Trump’s unprecedented
crackdowns on universities and on pro-Palestine student protesters, looked more
like apologetics for Trump’s authoritarianism.) Another moral panic RFK Jr has
been vocal
about is “men playing women’s sports” by which he means the tiny number of
transgender athletes joining their peers on a ballfield, another bit of
rightwing grandstanding irrelevant to public health. He has not issued a single tweet,
press release, or
policy on microplastics since assuming charge of HHS. Not only is Kennedy saying little about microplastics, even
as science mounts to confirm that he has been right to sound the alarm on this
issue, but he’s part of an administration that is doing more than any in
history to dismantle every mechanism that we could use to address this problem.
The Trump administration has
decimated
the Environmental Protection Agency, are attempting to gut
the Endangered Species Act, and are wrecking all the provisions for water
protections that they can possibly find. On Wednesday, in what EPA hatchet man Lee Zeldin called
“the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” the
administration began rolling back the Clean
Water Act itself, lifting most oversight of the nation’s wetlands and
waterways in a dramatic reversal not just of Biden policy but of most other
presidents since Nixon. Another policy that will badly hamper any plastic-fighting
efforts is the withdrawal of more than a billion in National Institutes of
Health dollars for scientific research. Some of these cuts are being delayed by
a court challenge but the policy has
already disrupted medical research on many levels. In the case of Columbia,
RFK celebrated
the cuts on his X
account and on the HHS website (because of alleged antisemitism). Research
is inextricable from finding solutions to the microplastics problem, since it
is so new and there is still so much that we don’t even understand about it:
for example, why do people with dementia
have much more plastic in their brains? Is the plastic causing the problem or
is there a quality to the brain tissue -or the
blood-brain barrier -- that makes it more absorbent or weaker? Without
support for science, we won’t even have enough information to attack this
problem. The truth is, if RFK Jr were sincere about addressing food
and environmental problems, he probably would never have joined the Trump administration
in the first place. Indeed, the longer he stays in it, the more he just looks like
yet another rich guy with a weird personality helping to sabotage our
government. Despite a lifetime of environmentalism and vocal concern for public
health, it is his own administration that is the biggest threat right now to our
health and our planet. At this point he’s going to be lucky if history
remembers him as the freak who left a dead bear in the park. He could go down
as the guy who sounded the alarm on microplastics, only to sit back and let
them addle our brains and threaten our food supply.
As recently as last year, denouncing plastics was a key part
of RFK Jr.’s political identity. Running for president as an icon of the
health-conscious, he called plastic pollution a “crisis
for human health and the environment.” He promised to support an
international plastics reduction treaty and to limit the domestic production of
plastic. He castigated President Biden for failing to fix the problem. He
espoused ambitious
solutions to the problem, alarming
the plastics industry.These positions, along with concern for food safety and commitment
to Making America Healthy Again, won support for his presidential campaign from
yoga moms and
fitness bros alike. Many of these supporters were then excited when Trump
appointed him head of Health and Human Services. His microplastics concern even
won him some grudging
credit from us here at TNR, alongside sharp
criticism of his anti-vaccine actions and other dangerous quackery,
which have indeed only gotten more troubling with the death of an unvaccinated
child in Texas last month—a tragedy that RFK seemed to minimize in
a string of bewildering falsehoods.Now, RFK’s alarmist stance on microplastics is going
mainstream. Just as RFK Jr. himself gets quieter on this topic, a host of scientific
studies are suggesting that the problem of microplastics may be far worse than
we thought—even approaching the scale of climate change as a threat to life on
earth. A preliminary Chinese study published on Monday found that
microplastics are interfering with plant photosynthesis, a problem that could
put more than 400 million people at risk of starvation. Another study,
published the next day and authored by researchers at Boston University, found that microplastics could be contributing
to the proliferation of dangerous
antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Last month, researchers analyzing the
brains of dead humans found, on average, a
spoonful of microplastics, which can’t be good. Another new paper found
that microplastics were increasingly entering our food supply through
fertilizers. All this is especially alarming given that microplastics emitted
into our bodies and into the environment have sharply increased over the last
decade and, if they continue unchecked, are
expected to double by 2040.If this were a normal administration and RFK Jr. a normal
activist, such reports would lend momentum and legitimacy to his crusade,
perhaps even leading to significant policy change. But this is not a normal administration,
and Kennedy is not a normal activist. Despite reports that one of his pet issues is even more
urgent than previously supposed, Kennedy seems to have changed the subject. Last
week he called anti-Semitism a “malady that sickens societies and kills
people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues,” as his
administration ignores or mishandles both bird flu and measles. (All forms of
bigotry can affect human health, but that statement, timed with Trump’s unprecedented
crackdowns on universities and on pro-Palestine student protesters, looked more
like apologetics for Trump’s authoritarianism.) Another moral panic RFK Jr has
been vocal
about is “men playing women’s sports” by which he means the tiny number of
transgender athletes joining their peers on a ballfield, another bit of
rightwing grandstanding irrelevant to public health. He has not issued a single tweet,
press release, or
policy on microplastics since assuming charge of HHS. Not only is Kennedy saying little about microplastics, even
as science mounts to confirm that he has been right to sound the alarm on this
issue, but he’s part of an administration that is doing more than any in
history to dismantle every mechanism that we could use to address this problem.
The Trump administration has
decimated
the Environmental Protection Agency, are attempting to gut
the Endangered Species Act, and are wrecking all the provisions for water
protections that they can possibly find. On Wednesday, in what EPA hatchet man Lee Zeldin called
“the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” the
administration began rolling back the Clean
Water Act itself, lifting most oversight of the nation’s wetlands and
waterways in a dramatic reversal not just of Biden policy but of most other
presidents since Nixon. Another policy that will badly hamper any plastic-fighting
efforts is the withdrawal of more than a billion in National Institutes of
Health dollars for scientific research. Some of these cuts are being delayed by
a court challenge but the policy has
already disrupted medical research on many levels. In the case of Columbia,
RFK celebrated
the cuts on his X
account and on the HHS website (because of alleged antisemitism). Research
is inextricable from finding solutions to the microplastics problem, since it
is so new and there is still so much that we don’t even understand about it:
for example, why do people with dementia
have much more plastic in their brains? Is the plastic causing the problem or
is there a quality to the brain tissue -or the
blood-brain barrier -- that makes it more absorbent or weaker? Without
support for science, we won’t even have enough information to attack this
problem. The truth is, if RFK Jr were sincere about addressing food
and environmental problems, he probably would never have joined the Trump administration
in the first place. Indeed, the longer he stays in it, the more he just looks like
yet another rich guy with a weird personality helping to sabotage our
government. Despite a lifetime of environmentalism and vocal concern for public
health, it is his own administration that is the biggest threat right now to our
health and our planet. At this point he’s going to be lucky if history
remembers him as the freak who left a dead bear in the park. He could go down
as the guy who sounded the alarm on microplastics, only to sit back and let
them addle our brains and threaten our food supply.
