People are speculating wildly that Robert Kennedy Jr. may be on President-elect Obama’s list of people to head the Environmental Protection Agency. If this is true, it’s a big deal. Why? Because RFK Jr. is a major antiscientist with some pretty severe dissociations from reality.
He’s an antivaxxer, which is very, very bad, and he’s the worst kind: he still thinks thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, and studies have shown conclusively – I mean 100% rock-solid literally-bet-your-kid’s-life-on-it conclusively – that thimerosal has nothing to do with autism.
Skeptico has details, but he’s also not worried: he finds no evidence that RFK is even on Obama’s radar. I certainly hope Skeptico is right. Orac has a lot of info, a lot, about why RFK Jr. would be as dangerous an EPA head as any completely unqualified anti-environmental hack Bush has appointed. Skeptic Dad chimes in too, as well as Steve Novella. Look around the blogosphere, you’ll find more.
Let’s hope Obama has more sense than that. He’s shown quite a bit over the past few months. I hope it’ll extend into the foreseeable future.
