After Gov. Jared Polis announced on social media he was “excited by the news the President-Elect will appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.” to head the US Department of Health and Human Services, he grabbed a shovel kept digging.
The infamous anti-vaxxer, Polis wrote, “helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019.” He hoped Kennedy “leans into personal choice on vaccines” because mandates are “terrible.” In addition to taking on “big pharma,” Polis added he looks forward to working with Kennedy against the “corporate agriculture oligopoly” which he accused of doing “more harm than good” to human health and the environment.
Trying to curry favor with the incoming administration by supporting a nominee who spreads harmful misinformation like a virus isn’t going to inoculate the state against Trump’s first 100 days. The governor is starting to regret it, judging by subsequent communiqués to the press and public, but there’s more ruing to come.
All week medical experts, Denver Post readers, and even national commentators criticized Polis’ social media post. State Sen. Kyle Mullica, a prime sponsor of the 2019 vaccine bill stymied by Polis and Kennedy, corrected the record. His bill did not mandate any vaccines; it standardized the student vaccine exemption form. It was the governor himself who tried to mandate vaccines. He urged the state Board of Health to require health care workers get the COVID shot in 2021. Did he forget?
Also, Kennedy is no mere big pharma critic. He has peddled the false claim that vaccines cause autism for years. He says vaccine research created AIDS, Lyme disease, and the Spanish Flu. Fiction like this discourages vaccination with deadly results. Just ask grieving Samoans. In 2018, two nurses accidentally mixed muscle relaxants with vaccine serum instead of water tragically killing two infants. Kennedy and his advocacy organization insisted the vaccine itself was to blame. Thanks to their relentless misinformation campaign, measles vaccination rates declined. A year later when a person infected with measles visited the island, the ensuing outbreak killed 83 Samoans, most of them children.
In addition to opposing vaccination, Kennedy encourages the consumption of unpasteurized milk and promises to remove fluoride from drinking water. By throwing out two centuries of medical breakthroughs we can make measles, tooth decay, and food poisoning great again.
Polis didn’t just throw medical science and Sen. Mullica under the bus to praise Kennedy, his denunciation of so-called Big Ag was nearly as egregious. Agriculture generates $47 billion of economic activity annually in our state. They aren’t forcing anyone to eat Ho Hos. Some people’s personal choice is processed food. Lean into that. Our farmers, ranchers, and food producers are helping feed the world. A little appreciation is due.
If Polis wants to compliment the incoming president on cabinet picks there are far better options. Chris Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, is a respected leader in the field who is pioneering technologies that make energy production quieter and more efficient. He is a solid choice to head the Department of Energy. Fellow governors Kristi Noem and Doug Burgum are competent leaders without a history of conspiracy theorizing. Noem shot her dog, a disgusting act of animal cruelty, but she didn’t eat the remains or dump the carcass in a public park. RFK, Jr. can’t say the same. Why not give a Twitter shout-out to them instead?
Even if Polis did praise Trump’s saner cabinet picks what does he expect to get? Will Trump forget the bad blood between them? Just last month, the former president called Polis a weak, ineffective, cowardly, pathetic fraud who tried to take Trump off the ballot because he was “leading in the polls against all of the Democrats.” Since nothing in that statement is true, Polis said Trump might be suffering from “cognitive decline.” A tweet legitimizing a manifestly unfit cabinet nominee won’t erase the past.
The problem with trying to ingratiate oneself with Trump is there is no guarantee he’ll return the favor. Just ask Nikki Haley. Colorado will still lose U.S. Space Command and become a target for mass deportations. The taste of boot will linger.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.
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