Nina-Bytes: Kennedy, Conspiracies, and Kids
Editor’s note: Nina-Bytes is a regular blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.
The Ripper Grifter
Here at the beginning of the second Trump era, I’ve grown accustomed to Trump regime officials openly spouting conspiracy theories, eliminationist rhetoric, and fascist ideology in the public discourse. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t bother me that half the government is talking like a combination of Matt Walsh and Joseph Goebbels, but if I put my fist through my monitor every time I heard a Trump minion call protestors “terrorists,” claim we’re at war with a gang, or argue that protesting against a genocide is antisemitism, I’d be financially ruined a mere three months into the Klepto Kaiser’s second presidency. Which is why I think it’s really saying something when I confess that watching Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the Trump regime’s HHS Secretary, disseminate ableism, dehumanize autistic people, and promote a sham study into “what has caused the autism epidemic” that will undoubtedly be used to support his Q-Anon-style conspiracy theories about the (nonexistent) link between vaccines and autism, I wanted the choke the life out of that woo-peddling nazi grifter right through the screen.
To understand why I felt that way, let’s take a look at this horrifying April 14th, 2025 article written by Salon Senior Editor, Amanda Marcotte:
RFK’s pledge to discover the “cause” of autism isn’t just a ploy – it’s a war on children’s health
“Robert Kennedy can’t be bothered to hide his thorough contempt for science. “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,” the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared on Thursday, when announcing a supposed “massive testing and research effort.” Even a person with only a fifth-grade understanding of science can see the problem: no scientist can promise a definitive “answer” to a complex biological question at the beginning of a study. Nor can anyone confidently declare they’ll have that inquiry wrapped up in a few short months, as if they’re writing a summer book report instead of conducting a scientific investigation.
But it’s easy enough to make these declarations when you’ve pre-determined your conclusion, and the only work left is to generate some fake statistics to back up that preordained “discovery.” In the spirit of open-mindedness, I suppose I should pretend we must wait to see whatever nonsense is produced before judging it. In the spirit of common sense, however, there is no point in playing dumb. Kennedy has already indicated what he expects the “findings” to be: that vaccines did it, even though all legitimate science shows that is false. To make sure no real science accidentally happens, he has put a non-scientist/non-doctor in charge of this non-study: David Geier, a man who has been fined for practicing medicine without a license. Worse, his “treatments” of children are better described as pointless torture.”
Reading this piece, two things immediately sprung to mind. First, I wouldn’t let Robert F. Kennedy Jr within ten feet of any child whatsoever if I had the ability to prevent it. Secondly; are we sure putting RFK Jr. in charge of Health and Human Services isn’t just a way to let some sadistic eugenicist freaks torture autistic children and profit from it? Because from out here, it sure does seem like that’s Kennedy’s plan and the reason for his department’s “massive testing and research” effort. I’m not a scientist, but somehow I doubt that conspiracy crank Kennedy and a fake doctor whose family business is apparently torturing children have the best interests of autistic Americans at heart; particularly when Kennedy is openly promoting the eugenicist idea that autism is an “epidemic” that is “destroying our children.” In case you were wondering, autistic Americans certainly noticed RFK Jr’s ablest disdain for them.
I don’t want to minimize the primary thrust of Marcotte’s analysis here; Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the Trump regime’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, is definitely an anti-science, anti-vax grifter freak whose government-funded “study” into the causes of autism is going to be an absolute farce designed to codify the reactionary conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism as official state policy. No matter what Q-Anon inspired crap Kennedy spouts out, we know that vaccines work, they don’t cause autism, and we don’t have an autism epidemic; our society is just much better at identifying people on the autism spectrum at an earlier age than we used to be because of increased awareness, a broader understanding of what constitutes autism, and better screening tools. This man absolutely is a walking public health crisis, and his leadership of HHS is unquestionably a danger to the health of children (and everyone else) in America; this is, after all, the same RFK Jr. who recently touted his agency’s wholly inadequate response to a measles breakout in America that has a child body count, as an example for all the world to follow.
Even when acknowledging that Kennedy is objectively an anti-science crank peddling ableism, conspiracy theories, and snake oil “treatments,” I also couldn’t help but notice the much darker implications of Kennedy’s installation as HHS Secretary: his crusade to “correct” autism, and his choice of unlicensed child torturer David Geier to head up this HHS research project. Look, if RFK Jr. just wanted a sham medical study to back up the reactionary right’s eugenicist conspiracy theories about autism and vaccines in modern society, he could have easily found some unscrupulous quack with a medical degree to help him do so. The choice of Grier, a man who, along with his father was caught running illegal, needlessly cruel, and objectively harmful medical experiments on children “to prevent autism,” strongly implies that Kennedy is after far more than a round of applause for speaking Q-Anon conspiracies into public health policy “reality.” Grier is after all a man who has already demonstrated a willingness to prey on parental fears to umm, torture children for money, basically.
All of which brings me back to the widespread eugenicist mindset towards people, particularly children, on the autism spectrum present in the larger American right. These are folks who, because they believe they have a right to literally own their children, perceive a child with autism as “defective goods,” and terrifyingly there are millions and millions of people in America who are encouraged to think this way. Fueled by reactionary conspiracies and the Covid-19 pandemic, these ideas have been widely embraced in American society, but are now being normalized through official state policy with the rise of Trump, his grifter cronies like RFK Jr, and the America First fascist movement. The people adopting this cluster of reactionary, abhorrent ideologies see autism as an “epidemic” that must be “corrected,” rather than recognizing even their own children with special needs as unique, vibrant human beings who don’t need to be “fixed,” but rather should be supported by a society that accepts them for the people they are. Unable to address the implications of their own eugenic ideology, dehumanizing worldview, and rampant ableism, they will happily pay handsome sums to fake scientists and doctors who promise to, effectively, torture the autism “out” of young perople. And watching that press conference, it dawned on me that folks like Kennedy and Grier know this, and plan to legitimize those inhumane attitudes and ideas through the force of public health policy – so grifter cranks like them and their friends can get filthy stinking rich in the process.
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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