Canty Continues to Fight for Vaccine Access, Maternal Health in the Face of Reckless Pseudoscience from HHS Secretary

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill.— State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, is supporting a resolution condemning Trump administration Secretary of Health and Human Services and fringe agitator, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and calling for his resignation; even as Illinois continues to make progress supporting a pro-vaccine, pro-maternal health and a pro-science agenda.

“Expanding maternal health options, such as affordable access to mammograms; continuing reliable vaccine recommendations based on good science-not online gossip; Illinois is ensuring medicine stays in the 21st century and helping residents accordingly,” Canty said. “Just a few months ago, we put new reforms in place to significantly cut the costs of prescription drugs so more low-income Illinoisans can get the prescriptions they need. This stance is unfortunately met with opposition from the White House.”

Recently, Kennedy sparked renewed outrage and derision by claiming, without facts or evidence, that acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol, causes autism when taken by mothers during pregnancy. Critics immediately pointed out that these claims are cruelly dehumanizing toward those living with autism—as well as promoting falsehoods about legitimate treatments in a way that endangers maternal and fetal health by increasing the risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, and complications due to untreated fever.

Kennedy has long been known as a prominent source of baseless and discredited health and medical disinformation—pushing such junk science conspiracy theories as “vaccines cause autism,” wireless tech causing cancer, raw milk, “chemtrails,” AIDS not being caused by HIV, and accusing the FDA of suppressing advancements in health.

He rose to prominence by playing on disinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that Dr. Anthony Fauci was engaged in a conspiracy to promote “dangerous” vaccines, that COVID-19 “targets Caucasians and Black people”—a trope associated with baseless theories that Chinese people and ethnic Jews are immune, suggesting that they are in some way responsible.

Canty joins many of her colleagues in saying that Kennedy’s documented history of promoting objective falsehoods and suppressing real medical science make him unqualified to influence a modern healthcare system.

“The culture of anti-science and alternative facts that Donald Trump promotes has found a figurehead, and a new low, in RFK. I wish we could totally dismiss his promotion of wild myths, but now he is in a position of power and influence, and the reality is tragic,” Canty said. “He has an enormous platform to spread dangerous misinformation and a station he can use to make major policy changes based on those beliefs. I encourage everyone in our community to listen to their licensed, experienced doctors and not the ravings of this deeply misguided man.”