RFK, JR.’s ROSE-COLORED GLASSES COULD WORSEN THE OPIOID ADDICTION CRISIS
I’m not a doctor. Not a medical one, at least. But I do have a PhD, an MA and a BA, which some might consider a waste of time. And to be honest, most PhDs currently looking for an academic job probably think the same on occasion.
When I was an undergrad, more than twenty years ago, there was debate on my small liberal arts campus about the value of a liberal arts education. And the same arguments circle today. I can agree that they aren’t always great at getting us our ideal job, but we are fit for many jobs because these degrees teach how to problem-solve and research a topic thoroughly.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., aka RFK, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, also has no medical degree. It’s not a requirement, or even that common, for the HHS Secretary to be an MD. But I think one of the most important things about not being a doctor is to never pretend to be one. Unfortunately, RFK, Jr., is full of the confidence of a doctor without any of the training or knowledge, or even an attempt at gaining the knowledge.
Of course, it’s possible for all of us to educate ourselves on a topic without a degree. Unfortunately, the information RFK, Jr., chooses to disseminate is either false or misleading. He is most well-known for his vaccine “skepticism,” or more accurately, lies. But this isn’t the only health issue he has addressed without full grasp of the facts.
NPR reported recently about another one of his ideas related to treating drug addiction, and it has the potential to be just as dangerous.
During his bid for president, he spoke about using wellness farms to “reparent” Black children – something for which Senator Angela Alsobrooks rightly took him to task last month – as a way to stem the drug addiction crisis in the United States.
NPR reported: “This wasn’t the first time Kennedy cited the small, often controversial, Italian farm community located a two-hour drive east of Florence. He has repeatedly described San Patrignano as a template for the sweeping federal program….which he proposed to create.”
But like Kennedy’s under-researched and incorrect claims about childhood vaccines, his optimism for these wellness farms is misplaced. Of course, more community and support would serve as a way to help people who are struggling with any number of problems to not turn to drug or alcohol abuse. But as medical professionals have pointed out, a wellness farm, which is abstinence-only, is not the answer for opioid addiction treatment.
San Patrignano residents typically suffer from alcohol or cocaine addiction, which is not treated in the same way as opioids. In fact, NPR interviewed Dr. Robert Heimer from Yale University School of Public Health, whose “research shows that when people addicted to opioids attempt to stop using street drugs without the aid of medications, they typically relapse within a short time.” This relapse after abstinence puts them at even more risk of a deadly overdose. Abstinence is widely recognized as a poor treatment for opioid addiction, and researchers favor medication and counseling, as Heimer suggested.
There’s no doubt that Kennedy has had a long and storied career, and he has a history of using his name and connections to help ordinary people, especially in his work as an environmental lawyer. Given his own drug abuse history, he has the opportunity to leverage his experience to help people with far fewer resources and support than he had.
Leaders at San Patrignano only became aware of Kennedy’s interest in their program through the media, and are skeptical of its applicability in the U.S. NPR found no record of Kennedy ever visiting the site. But it hasn’t stopped him from pretending to know how it works and claiming that it would work for treating victims of the opioid epidemic here in the United States, which itself is unique in the world. This epidemic deserves our serious attention, particularly because our government and economic structure made it almost inevitable.
The problem with being a Kennedy is that their own experiences have been and will continue to be highly unique. Any plan RFK, Jr., puts forward that will actually help people will require research, as well as listening to experts and victims with real-world experience. Instead, it seems he’s choosing to skim headlines, much like his boss. He needs to take off the rose-colored glasses and do at least as much research about his idealized treatment plan as reporters at NPR.