Here in Washington, we’ve been hearing about tensions between the White House and one of its most controversial — but, at least in some circles, most popular — figures: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Polling of likely voters indicates that the Health and Human Services secretary can be an asset to Republicans when he’s talking about improving the nation’s food supply or labeling ultraprocessed foods. But when he’s talking about removing recommendations for routine childhood vaccinations, he can be a detriment.
So, when I learned Kennedy would be taking his show on the road to my home state of Ohio, where populist figures tend to perform well, I knew I had to be there.
How would a politician who built his reputation seeding widespread doubts about routine childhood immunizations stay away from one of the core messages he’s preached for years?
Well, it turns out, he starts by reading a book about a trash truck to preschoolers.
The trip took us across northern Ohio, from a regenerative farm in Huron owned by two brothers who grow colorful vegetables to the Cleveland Clinic, where Kennedy masked up entering an operating room of a heart surgery patient.
In the end, though, Kennedy couldn’t escape the vaccine talk.
Speaking at the City Club of Cleveland, Kennedy raised doubts about the safety of vaccines that had been — up until last year — universally recommended to prevent hepatitis B, an incurable disease.
He called for parents to “be given that choice” on administering the vaccine to newborns, a remark that gave way to cheers and applause from half the room.
The other half groaned and booed.
When I sat down with the health secretary for a few minutes in an Ohio farmhouse, Kennedy ticked off his accomplishments during his first year in office; redesigning federal nutrition guidelines and defining ultraprocessed foods for the American public were among them.
As his list grew longer, I thought about the mothers I’d talked to over the last year who had become increasingly nervous about taking their infants out in crowded places amid a raging measles outbreak and the growing threat from other infectious diseases.
What was his message for those parents, I asked?
“I would say everybody should be vaccinated — against measles,” Kennedy told me. “But we need to pay more and more attention to chronic disease. All of the vaccine-preventable, infectious diseases put together kill probably 10,000 Americans a year.”
The number of deaths is closer to 50,000, according to scientific researchers.
He tested robotic hands on a heart surgery patient and chewed on microgreens in Ohio, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. couldn’t dodge questions about the Trump administration’s more controversial policies.