A Convenient Piece of Junk Science
RFK Jr. is prepared to rework the FDA’s official assessment of the abortion pill mifepristone based at least in part on a questionable report.
By Keren Landman, The Atlantic
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a long love affair with junk science, and as secretary of Health and Human Services, he has embraced it once more, most brazenly to justify his false claims that vaccines cause autism. Last week, he brought yet another shoddily designed study to a different fight. In a Senate Committee hearing, he cited a report that few scientists would recognize as science in order to justify an FDA safety review of the drug mifepristone, which is used in the majority of abortions in the United States.
President Donald Trump had previously asked HHS to study the drug’s safety, and Kennedy emphasized at the hearing that a review of the drug would be a top FDA priority. The unusually high rate of adverse events identified in the report, he noted, “indicates that at very least, the label should be changed.” In other words, the top U.S. health official is prepared to rework—based at least in part on a poorly designed report that has not undergone scientific review—the government’s official guidance on a widely used drug.
