U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., who represents the 8th District of Northern Virginia that includes Falls Church, participated in an online press conference and panel presentation yesterday sponsored by Protect Our Care Virginia. The focus was on the danger that the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services would represent.
“The future of health care is under threat from one of Donald Trump’s most extreme Cabinet nominations,” Beyer said at the event yesterday. “I won’t mince words, RFK Jr. is an existential threat to our health care.”
In addition to Rep. Beyer, the panel of speakers consisted of Katie Baker, State Director of Protect Our Care Virginia, Nurse educator and Medical Reserve Corps vaccinator Mary Wright Baylor of Springfield, Community health specialist Pablo Moulden of Arlington, and cancer survivor Laura Packard of Alexandria.
Baker, who moderated the forum, said, “To say RFK Jr. is a threat to our health care would be an understatement. He is a threat to the many years of scientific progress made in our country.”
Rep. Beyer added, “RFK Jr. is not qualified to lead an agency or workforce of the magnitude of HHS. In fact, he’s already said that on Day 1 he’s planning to fire 600 National Institutes of Health workers and replace them with people who share his extreme anti-science views.”
Moulden, identifying himself as HIV-Positive, said he feared that Kennedy would savage the program that many have worked so hard over so many years to create an effective treatment for HIV and that has kept him healthy and undetectable since he was first diagnosed six years ago. RFK Jr., he said, has said he doesn’t believe the HIV virus is responsible for AIDS, a completely discredited claim.
Mouldon said that there are millions of Americans who have HIV, including many who don’t know they have it, which makes continuing the government
HIV treatment program so critical.
Packard said she was diagnosed with a particularly deadly form of cancer, but that under the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, her illness is now proven to be treatable and curable.
Beyer added that the nomination of RFK Jr., “is a formula for making polio great again. From advancing anti-Semitic lies about Covid19 to blaming school shootings on anti-depressants, there are countless reasons why RFK Jr. should not be allowed anywhere near the Hubert Humphrey Building. That’s why it’s time for all of us to stand up and fight.”
The Protect Our Care sponsors of the event put out a statement saying, “If RFK is confirmed, it will put Virginians’ lives at risk and jeopardize critical
programs like the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. RFK Jr. is deeply unqualified to serve in this position as he has no leadership qualifications in any role in public health or a government agency. Additionally, his fringe views on vaccines and his disregard of science and public health makes him a danger to the American people.”
The statement went on, “As HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. will push radical policies that will undermine decades of progress to lower health care costs, conduct research on life-saving cures for diseases, and keep Virginians healthy. Virginians deserve a leader at HHS who believes in science, the efficacy of vaccines, and who is committed to strengthening and expanding health care policies enacted since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The speakers yesterday discussed how RFK Jr.’s leadership will affect nearly every Virginian, as “he will prioritize his own interests and bolster MAGA efforts to increase health care costs by slashing Medicaid, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and banning Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices.”
Baylor cautioned that there are potentially two new pandemics on the horizon that RFK Jr. would be wholly incapable of tackling. According to the Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Yonatan Grad, “Is there another pandemic coming? Yes. When? Which pathogen? How severe will it be? No one can say for sure. But the big demographic changes that are coming, due to climate change as well as economic and other factors, will alter the landscape and create new risks, both for new pathogens to emerge and for known pathogens to re-emerge.”
