RFK Jr. Defends Ouster of CDC Director by Distorting List of Public Health Achievements  

 
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4 amid questions over his leadership, HHS vaccine policies and the abrupt firing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director less than a month into her tenure. 

In a statement via her lawyer, the director, Susan Monarez, said that she was targeted after she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts." Nine former CDC directors or acting directors wrote an op-ed published in the New York Times on Sept. 1, saying they were “worried about the wide-ranging impact” Kennedy's decisions “will have on America’s health security.”

Our SciCheck team has written numerous articles about Kennedy's false and misleading claims about health and science, particularly his statements about vaccines. Our latest story, by Science Editor Jessica McDonald, explains how Kennedy distorted the facts when justifying Monarez's firing. 

While declining to speak about Monarez specifically, Kennedy said in a Fox News interview that the “CDC has problems,” going on to claim: “Today, on the CDC’s website right now, they list the 10 top advances — the 10 greatest advances in medical science. And one of them is abortion.”

He added that water fluoridation and vaccines were also on the list. "So we need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there is really a deeply, deeply embedded — I would say, malaise — at the agency.”

We could find no such CDC webpage. Instead, as Jessie explains, there are a few older reports published in the agency’s journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, that list the top 10 public health achievements. And while vaccination and water fluoridation are included, abortion is not a main entry in any of these reports.

An April 1999 MMWR lists the 10 greatest public health achievements in the U.S. during the 20th century. Subsequent MMWR articles that year explain the rationale for the choices on the list. Two of the entries, “Healthier mothers and babies” and “Family Planning,” include brief mentions of abortion. But abortion itself is not the major “achievement.”

The mentions of abortion concern maternal mortality and sepsis, and how modern birth control reduces unintended pregnancies and, consequently, abortions. For instance, on maternal mortality, abortion is mentioned to note that legalization of the practice “beginning in the 1960s contributed to an 89% decline in deaths from septic illegal abortions” between 1950 and 1973.

For more, see our full story: “RFK Jr. Defends Ouster of CDC Director by Distorting List of Public Health Achievements.”

Reader: Did President Donald Trump solve seven wars in seven months?

FactCheck.org responds: In recent months Trump has claimed on numerous occasions that his intervention has resulted in ending multiple wars around the world. Trump has claimed credit for settling conflicts between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Thailand and Cambodia, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Experts in international relations or the countries’ leaders said Trump had successfully helped to end the fighting between Israel and Iran, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Pakistan and India, though Indian leaders refute that claim. Other international disagreements Trump cites were not wars — and some hostilities are ongoing, experts said.

Evelyn Farkas, executive director of Arizona State University’s nonpartisan McCain Institute, told us in a phone interview that Trump is “demonstrating a lot of focus on peacemaking, which is laudable. And in the cases where he can get quick results, he’s been successful.” But in other conflicts, “these are deep-seated, fundamental disagreements that don’t lend themselves to quick diplomacy.”

For a review of each conflict cited by Trump, read our Ask FactCheck response: "Addressing Trump’s Claims About Ending Multiple Wars." 

Wrapping Up

• RFK Jr. defiende la destitución de la directora de los CDC distorsionando una lista de logros en salud pública
  En medio del tumulto en que se encuentran los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades, que incluye el despido de la directora de la agencia, el secretario de Salud y Servicios Humanos, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., distorsionó los hechos para afirmar falsamente que el sitio web de la agencia enumera el aborto como uno de los “10 mayores avances en la ciencia médica”.
   
• Abordando las afirmaciones de Trump sobre haber terminado múltiples guerras
  P: ¿Es cierto que el presidente Donald Trump resolvió siete guerras en siete meses?
  R: Trump ha dicho que él puso fin a seis o siete guerras desde su regreso a la Casa Blanca en enero. Expertos en relaciones internacionales afirman que el presidente ha tenido un papel importante en terminar los combates en cuatro conflictos, aunque las autoridades de un país refutan la afirmación de Trump. Pero algunos de los desacuerdos internacionales que Trump menciona no han sido guerras y algunos enfrentamientos no han terminado, según los expertos.