ANOTHER HEADLINE, ANOTHER INDICTMENT
Fauci was treated as beyond question. RFK Jr. is treated as beyond consideration. Neither approach serves science—or the American people.
Some Are So Determined to Discredit the Messenger That They Refuse to Consider the Message.
A recent New York Times headline declared that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received $4 million in book advances from a publisher who also “monetized MAHA.” The article also reported consulting payments made to Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines.
Those financial relationships are fair subjects for investigation. No public official should be shielded from legitimate questions about possible conflicts of interest. If laws or ethics regulations were violated, the facts should be established and appropriate action taken.
But a large book advance is not, by itself, proof of corruption. More importantly, the headline tells us nothing about whether Kennedy’s ideas are right, whether his policies are working or whether the Make America Healthy Again movement is addressing problems that have been neglected for decades.
The article investigates the man. Who is investigating the merits of his mission?
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| America’s chronic-disease crisis demands an honest examination of what we eat, how we regulate food and how we approach health. |
What Kennedy Is Trying to Change
America faces an enormous chronic-disease problem. Obesity, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, allergies and other illnesses affect millions of families and consume an ever-growing share of our healthcare resources. American children obtain much of their daily nutrition from highly processed foods, while food companies have been permitted to introduce many ingredients under a regulatory system that deserves much closer scrutiny.
Kennedy has made those issues impossible to ignore.
Under his leadership, the Department of Health and Human Services has focused attention on highly processed foods, synthetic food dyes, questionable additives, childhood chronic disease and the influence of powerful industries over health policy. The administration has also revised federal dietary guidance around a simple message: eat real food and reduce highly processed foods and added sugars.
HHS reports that 37 states have enacted legislation advancing parts of the MAHA agenda, 18 SNAP waivers have been signed, and companies representing approximately 40 percent of the food industry have pledged to remove synthetic dyes. Kennedy has also directed the FDA to reconsider the “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, process that has allowed companies to introduce some ingredients without formal premarket review by the agency. These are actions, not merely slogans.
People can disagree with Kennedy’s methods, priorities or scientific conclusions. I do not agree with everything he has said or done. But confronting chronic disease, improving nutrition, examining food additives and questioning entrenched institutional interests are legitimate objectives. They deserve serious consideration.
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| Science advances through questions and competing evidence—not by silencing those who challenge official conclusions. |
When Fauci Became “The Science”
We witnessed the opposite version of this problem during COVID.
Anthony Fauci was treated by much of the media as if questioning him meant questioning science itself. People who challenged official claims, government mandates, school closures or shifting public-health guidance were frequently dismissed as irresponsible. Some were vilified as conspiracy theorists, and some discussions were restricted or censored on social-media platforms.
Fauci even declared, “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” But no person is science—not Fauci, not Kennedy and not any government official.
Science is a process. It requires questions, competing hypotheses, transparent evidence and a willingness to revise earlier conclusions. It becomes weaker, not stronger, when authorities treat disagreement as disinformation merely because it challenges the prevailing position.
We now know that government pressure on public discussion was not imaginary. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg later acknowledged that senior Biden administration officials repeatedly pressured Facebook to suppress certain COVID-related content, including humor and satire. Zuckerberg said the pressure was wrong and expressed regret that his company had not been more outspoken against it.
Several questions once portrayed as too irresponsible to discuss eventually became legitimate matters of investigation. The origin of COVID remains unresolved. A laboratory incident has not been established as the cause, but neither has it been conclusively ruled out. Even the World Health Organization has maintained that the possibility requires further investigation.
That does not mean every COVID skeptic was correct. Some claims were unsupported, exaggerated or demonstrably false. It means the authorities were not infallible, official certainty was sometimes overstated, and some people who raised difficult questions had legitimate reasons for doing so.
We should have learned something from that experience.
From Unquestioning Trust to Automatic Rejection
With Fauci, skepticism was treated as dangerous. With Kennedy, skepticism has become so absolute that nothing he says or accomplishes is permitted to have value.
Fauci was treated as though questioning the man meant rejecting science. Kennedy is treated as though considering the man means rejecting science.
These may look like opposite reactions, but they arise from the same intellectual failure: judging evidence according to our feelings about the messenger.
Opposition to Kennedy—and especially his association with Donald Trump—too often settles the question before his work is examined. Every flaw becomes disqualifying. Every controversy becomes defining. Every positive accomplishment is minimized or ignored. Critics do not merely question particular policies; many appear determined to prove that nothing worthwhile can possibly come from this administration.
The New York Times headline fits that pattern perfectly. The financial questions may be legitimate, but the framing supplies Kennedy’s opponents with precisely what they are seeking: another reason to dismiss the man without confronting the substance of his agenda.
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| The messenger deserves scrutiny, but the message must ultimately be weighed on its evidence and merits. |
Apply One Standard to Everyone
I am willing to judge Kennedy critically. I am also willing to judge him fairly.
If evidence demonstrates that he is wrong, then his position should be challenged. If his financial relationships cross legal or ethical lines, they should be investigated. If one of his policies creates more harm than good, it should be reversed.
But the same standard must operate in the other direction.
If removing unnecessary synthetic dyes improves the food supply, acknowledge it. If closing regulatory loopholes produces greater transparency, acknowledge it. If encouraging Americans to eat real food instead of heavily processed products improves public health, acknowledge it. If Kennedy forces government, industry and medicine to take chronic disease more seriously, acknowledge that too.
The question should never be whether we like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Donald Trump. The question should be whether a particular idea is sound, whether a policy is supported by evidence and whether it benefits the American people.
Will Critics Recognize Success?
If Make America Healthy Again produces worthwhile reforms, will its critics acknowledge them? Or will they simply move on to the next accusation, controversy or negative headline?
That question reaches far beyond Kennedy.
A healthy society must be able to investigate misconduct without using every allegation as an excuse to discard worthwhile ideas. It must be able to respect expertise without turning experts into unquestionable authorities. It must also be able to reconsider unpopular arguments without automatically endorsing everything said by the people making them.
Fauci should never have been treated as the embodiment of science. Kennedy should not be treated as its enemy merely because he challenges established institutions.
When hostility toward the messenger prevents us from examining the message, that is not critical thinking. It is confirmation bias.
