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Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a long, enraged social media response to a New York Times article reporting that health department insiders think Kennedy is disengaged from the work of his sprawling agency. His response, however, seems to back the Times’ claim.
The report, published Sunday, June 7, relied on accounts from a dozen people who have had direct contact with Kennedy during his time as health secretary. Collectively, the sources indicate that Kennedy has little interest in the details of the health department’s work and little direct interaction with career staff. Kennedy misses critical, regularly scheduled meetings with agency leaders, is sometimes “checked out” in the meetings he attends, and has been out of the loop on key decisions, such as the firing of Tracy Beth Høeg, a political appointee elevated to top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration. In his stead, Kennedy often refers people to his protective, longtime assistant, Stefanie Spear, who colleagues say has slowed department operations and fueled some significant leadership departures.
On Wednesday night, Kennedy responded to the report with an 871-word diatribe on social media against the reporter, veteran journalist Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and the Times. His key argument was that much of the story could be refuted by a look at his jam-packed public calendar.
“All one needs to refute your argument is to glance at my publicly available calendar,” he wrote in his opening paragraph. At another point, he elaborated, writing “Had you read my calendar, you would have seen that I have back-to-back meetings all day, every day, with both career and political staff…”
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, journalists at Stat News reported that Kennedy’s public calendar was news to them, too. Over the past year, they have requested his calendar multiple times through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) press office and by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
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