Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a long, angry response on social media to a New York Times article reporting that Health Department insiders believe Kennedy has become disengaged from the work of his vast agency. However, their response appears to support the Times’ claim.
The report, published on Sunday, June 7, was based on the accounts of a dozen people who had direct contact with Kennedy during his time as Health Secretary. Collectively, the sources indicate that Kennedy had little interest in the details of the Health Department’s work and had little direct interaction with career staff. Kennedy has missed important, regularly scheduled meetings with agency leaders, is sometimes “checked out” from meetings he does attend, and has been out of the loop on major decisions, such as the firing of Tracy Beth Hoeg, a political appointee to the top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration. In his place, Kennedy often refers people to his protective, longtime aide, Stephanie Spears, who aides say has slowed down the department’s operations and promoted some significant leadership departures.
On Wednesday night, Kennedy responded to the report with an 871-word comment on social media against the reporter, veteran journalist Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and the Times. His main argument was that much of the story could be refuted by looking at his packed public calendar.
“All one need do is take a look at my publicly available calendar to refute your argument,” he wrote in his opening paragraph. At another point, he wrote at length, “If you had read my calendar, you would have seen that I have back-to-back meetings all day, every day, with both career and political staffers…”
The problem with Kennedy’s argument is that he does not have a publicly available calendar. This journalist is not aware of any such calendar. On Thursday, State News reporters reported that Kennedy’s public calendar was news to them, too. Over the past year, he has requested their calendar several times through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) press office and by filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
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