Target: Jim O’ Neill, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Acting Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Goal: Don’t offer health guidance driven by unproven theories rather than scientific consensus.
U.S. Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy continues to spread faulty information and shape policies that run counter to decades of medical guidance. The latest controversies involve issues that could impact millions of Americans. Following up a misleading suggestion that the pain drug Tylenol can cause autism in developing fetuses, the Department of Health took another significant step in autism disinformation via its agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A recent update to the CDC website states, “the claim vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” Years of scientific studies on the subject have found no credible link between vaccines and autism. The rise in vaccine skepticism under Kennedy has led to a rise in preventable diseases once considered eradicated in the United States, like measles and whooping cough.
The secretary has also unveiled so-called “common-sense” health guidelines concerning the consumption of substances long linked to cardiovascular disease development: saturated fats. New dietary guidance will “stress the need to eat saturated fats of dairy, of good meat.” The guidance often shapes school lunches, which means schools may start serving more foods that can build up plaque in the arteries (a major contributor to heart attacks and strokes later in life).
Sign the petition below to demand the government’s health leaders stop jettisoning science in favor of unfounded dogma.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Deputy Secretary O’ Neill,
“Secretary Kennedy is committed to new dietary recommendations that are rooted in rigorous science,” claimed a spokesperson of the Department of Health. A two-year comprehensive review and 400-page report crafted by experts with actual background in medicine and science – along with 75 years of supporting data – say otherwise. The Department of Health wants to wage war on ultra-processed foods for their equal dangers while giving the green light to saturated fats that have been implicated in cases of heart disease, stroke, and other serious cardiovascular diseases for tens of millions of Americans.
Likewise, while remaining silent on the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent approval of PFAS-infused fertilizer (a substance linked to autism development), the department has instead chosen to attack painkillers and vaccines that have bettered (and saved) the lives of countless Americans. Once again, decades of careful and thoughtful science have been discarded in favor of harmful hunches and callous conspiracies. If this department is to be a standard-bearer and guardian of American healthcare, it must rein in and roll back the disinformation machine that is putting the entire nation on a dangerous, disastrous course marked by more infectious and chronic diseases.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Anastasia Shuraeva
