We all knew RFK Jr. was going to do this — but it's not the end. Attend.

A plurality of American voters wanted to have the world's most notorious anti-science crackpot in charge of American healthcare. Here is how rational people will fix it.

This week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the notorious anti-vaccine activist who denies virtually any science placed in front of him, made news this week for foistering perhaps the greatest lie in history — and the most transparently absurd — that any government official has ever tried to inflict upon the American people. In short, he has spent all his recent decades spreading lies and fear about vaccines, doing his best to erode public trust in this most important medical revolution in history. And then, in a comical twist, he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week claiming that he is here to restore public trust in vaccines. The awesome Dr. Andrea Love has written a post about this insane glitch in the matrix, perhaps the craziest hypocritical con any political figure has ever attempted.

I don’t think anybody buys it. Rational people know he’s full of shit; and his anti-vaccine cult followers know that he has no intention of “restoring trust in vaccines.” So I have no idea what’s in his worm-eaten brain.

Let’s take a quick moment to examine his entire life history of hostility toward science and reality:

• For some reason I can’t fathom, puff-pieces always refer to Kennedy as an “environmental lawyer.” No. He’s not. He is not admitted to the bar in any state. The closest he came was in 1982 when he was appointed Assistant DA for Manhattan. So he quickly tried to pass the bar. He failed it, and had to resign his appointment. (A few weeks later, he was arrested and charged with felony heroin possession; and shortly thereafter, with driving under the influence and without a license, insurance, or registration. Model citizen.)

• His “environmental” experience comes from managing law firms that fought against nuclear power, as he was too dim to understand the importance of the world’s cleanest and safest zero-carbon energy source; and made himself a millionaire many times over by prosecuting cases either (a) opposing wind power; (b) falsely claiming that Roundup, the world’s safest and most effective agricultural herbicide, caused cancer; or (c) suing companies like Ford and DuPont for hazardous waste that we now know harmed nobody at all, Erin Brockovich style. In short, Kennedy is a garden variety anti-corporatist, greenwashing his anti-science and lucrative lawsuits under the guise of “environmentalism”.

So we should hardly be surprised at his anti-vaccine activism. He has made many millions of dollars off discouraging parents from giving their children life-saving vaccines.

So it surprised nobody when he fired all 17 members of the ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) this week, and then replaced them with eight (so far) career anti-vaccine, anti-science activists. Anyone who has followed his reckless life hacking away at truth and science and safety knew he was going to do this. His goal is to make all vaccines illegal. Whether this is motivated by profit or by deranged anti-evidence fundamentalism is known only to him and his brain worms.

People will die as a result. Children, mostly. Kennedy will cheer that as a great victory, as he has before. All the way to the bank.

Having his hand-picked committee of science deniers behind him will give his decisions legitimacy — in his mind. It doesn’t have to be that way. He does not have that kind of power in reality, though he does on paper. Here are the things you and I (and all our friends we share this with) can do to prevent it: