Public Health Destroyed Its Own Credibility Long Before RFK Jr.

The article criticizes the U.S. medical establishment for repeatedly adopting controversial positions on key health and social issues-abortion, transgender care, and COVID-19 restrictions-not based on rigorous scientific evidence but largely due to political and cultural pressures. It highlights an op-ed by six former U.S. surgeons general who condemned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of endangering national health. However,the author argues that the medical establishment itself has undermined public trust by endorsing what he calls harmful policies.

Specifically, the article discusses how the American medical Association (AMA) reversed its historically anti-abortion stance in 1970, driven more by social changes linked to the sexual revolution and feminism rather than new scientific findings. It points out studies linking abortion to increased mental health risks for women yet notes the AMA still supports abortion as “good medical practise.”

On transgender issues, the piece contends that medical endorsements of gender transition treatments for minors lack long-term scientific validation and have led to adverse effects, including mental health struggles and irreversible physical changes.The article cites critics and recent studies questioning the safety and wisdom of such care.

Regarding COVID-19, the article condemns widespread public health measures like lockdowns and mask mandates as unnecessary, economically damaging, and harmful to children’s advancement, while noting that key figures responsible have not been held accountable.

Though the author expresses some reservations about RFK Jr.’s own medical claims, he ultimately argues that the loss of trust in the medical establishment is primarily self-inflicted due to its repeated alignment with politically motivated, rather than evidence-based, policies.


“The actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are endangering the health of the nation,” declared six former U.S. surgeons general appointed by every Republican and Democratic president since George H.W. Bush in a Oct. 7 op-ed at The Washington Post. “The profound, immediate and unprecedented threat that Kennedy’s policies and positions pose to the nation’s health cannot be ignored,” the surgeons general declared. Whatever the merits of such criticisms of RFK, its alarmism is undermined by decades of the medical establishment wantonly kowtowing to harmful policies promoted by leftist ideologues.

It would be easier to countenance such admonitions if this isn’t precisely what the American medicine and scientific establishment has done when it comes to abortion, transgenderism, or the Covid pandemic.

The Conceit of Abortion as ‘Good Medical Practice

Though the American medical establishment was historically opposed to abortion, in 1970, the American Medical Association formally reversed its earlier position on abortion and voted in favor of legal abortion. Was this because of overwhelming evidence overturning scientific consensus regarding life in the womb being uniquely human, or analysis that abortions would not result in negative consequences for the women who underwent the procedures? Of course not.

Both simple logic and developments in scientific research are sufficient to know that life in the womb is human — with heartbeats beginning at the end of the fourth week of gestation — and thus deserving of legal protection. Arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed by week ten. And can we really believe that the medical establishment would think that a violent, invasive procedure that destroys a living organism inside a woman’s body, that her body is intimately united to and shares her DNA, would not in some sense harm that mother?

No, the medical establishment changed its position on abortion because of rising public pressure and social norms stemming from the sexual revolution. The feminist movement for female equality and empowerment demanded that women have more control over their bodies, enabling them to assume (and maintain) a competitive place in the workplace and attain more power in sexual relationships. Babies were (and remain) an obstacle to professional and personal development. Thus, suddenly, the AMA decided that “reproductive care is health care.”

This, despite the fact that a bevy of peer-reviewed quantitative analysis demonstrates that post-abortive women had an 81 percent higher risk of mental-health problems when compared with women who had not had an abortion, as authors Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis have noted. Studies show that after an abortion, women suffer higher rates of anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse and suicidal behaviors, and marijuana abuse. And, obviously, abortions are catastrophic for the health and well-being of life in the womb. Nevertheless, the AMA to this day decrees that abortion is “good medical practice.”

Transition-Related ‘Care’ Is an Oxymoron

The story is strikingly similar when it comes to transgenderism, a movement that was all but peripheral — and even deemed a mental disorder by medical professionals — until the last decade-and-a-half. Now, the AMA issues declarations like this one in 2021, that urged governments to oppose legislation that would “prohibit the provision of medically necessary gender transition-related care to minor patients” because “we believe this legislation represents a dangerous governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine and will be detrimental to the health of transgender children across the country.” Today, the AMA opposes restrictions on trans persons entering restrooms correlated to their perceived gender identity.

Again, we may ask, did the medical establishment change its position on transgenderism because of scientific evidence proving that “gender is fluid” or that a person can somehow reverse their inherent sexual biology? Did the medical establishment conduct decades of studies carefully considering the physical, mental, or emotional impact of encouraging people to assume new gender identities distinct from their sexual biology? No, they didn’t.

And, as recent studies — and such illuminating books as Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage are sadly showing, the results have been disastrous. Children placed on hormones and subjected to surgeries soon realize such treatments are permanent and may prevent them from ever naturally conceiving a child. Youths encouraged to embrace their “gender dysphoric” identities struggle with skyrocketing levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. And, as we are increasingly learning (despite purposeful underreporting), there seems to be a correlation between transgenderism and violence, which is unsurprising given it is indeed a mental illness to be clinically and pastorally treated, not indulged and celebrated.

The Disaster That Was Covid Restrictions

We need spend little time remembering the unscientific, patronizing and erroneous advice and dictums issued from the medical and scientific establishment regarding the coronavirus during the pandemic. Social distancing, masks, school and business closures — almost all of it was unnecessary. These totalitarian measures saved relatively few lives, cost our nation trillions of dollars, and imperiled the educational and social development of an entire generation.

Yet who, exactly, has admitted their errors or paid any serious price for their disastrous “expert advice” and “recommendations”? The unflappable and unrepentant Anthony Fauci has paid no price for his errors, nor has former Planned Parenthood president and WaPo contributor Leanna Wen.

Admittedly, I myself am a bit hesitant when it comes to RFK Jr.’s medical assessments and recommendations, which also seem to sometimes lack sufficient evidence and rely more on foregone conclusions about the harmful effects of certain drugs or foods than unbiased, longitudinal research. That said, to accuse him of eroding public distrust in our nation’s medical establishment is risible. RFK Jr. didn’t vitiate the medical establishment’s reputation. They did it to themselves.


Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He is a regular contributor at many publications and the author of three books, including the upcoming “Wisdom From the Cross: How Jesus’ Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die)” (Sophia Institute Press, 2026).



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