The Spire

Tucker Scott ‘26

Opinions Editor

After Trump’s victory he quickly began assembling his cabinet. And, largely his picks have been extraordinarily good. Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio, and Doug Bergum will all do a fantastic job leading their individual departments. Except for Matt Gaetz, Trump has done a great job putting highly qualified and efficient people to work for his incoming administration. Then, he announced RFK Jr. as head of Health and Human Services. And, many on the right were extremely happy with this choice. In a country that has been getting more and more unhealthy, of course someone who wanted to Make America Healthy Again was the perfect choice. But, in reality, I believe it was the wrong choice to make.

First, to be clear, there are certain parts of RFK Jr’s beliefs that should be discussed and debated. For example, putting fluoride in the water. That’s something that should be researched, discussed, and debated among the scientific community about the detriments and benefits. Or genetically modified foods and using pesticides in farming. Again, there is a fair amount of disagreement inside the scientific community about it. But there are other parts of his beliefs, like that vaccines cause autism, that should not only be ignored but should be actively called out because they are quite dangerous.

But that isn’t even why I think he was the wrong person to run Health and Human Services, at least not entirely. Instead I believe his core philosophy about the role of the government in its citizens’ private lives is what should ultimately be disqualifying for him. RFK Jr. believes that the government’s job is to ensure its citizens are healthy, not that it should encourage its citizens to be healthy, but actively mandate it.

Now, to be clear, I’m in no way saying we should encourage obesity or being unhealthy. We shouldn’t, and the government should be involved in doing research and making recommendations that we can choose to either listen to or ignore, because that is the essence of freedom. The perfect example of this is cigarettes. They are not banned anywhere, as far as I am aware, however the government has done studies and made sure that the general populace knows the dangers of smoking, and if some people still then decide to smoke, that is on them. The same should apply to our food. Are McDonald’s fries good for you? No. I don’t think there is anyone who would argue they are. But are they also delicious? Absolutely. Is Chick-Fil-A healthy? No, probably not. But is it delicious? One hundred percent. We, as Americans, should know the dangers of chemicals and foods but then be allowed to make our own decision about whether or not we choose to eat it.

Again, none of this is to say that RFK Jr. would do a terrible job as HHS secretary. Honestly I have no idea what he would do, especially because, while he has power, he would still need to be confirmed by the senate and could always be replaced by President Trump. But it is to say that we should be wary of both giving political power based solely on nice sounding words like Make America Healthy Again as well as increasing the power of a federal department.

RFK’s entire belief is that the government should be able to ban things in order to force Americans to be healthy. Not that it should ban actively dangerous things and then provide information and allow people to make their own decisions, but that the government has not only a right but a duty to make America healthy, whether they want to be or not. That is fundamentally opposed to the founding ideals of America and ultimately why I believe RFK Jr. was the wrong choice for head of HHS.

Featured image courtesy of Daily Bulletin

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