In recent years, American politics has witnessed a disturbing rise in conspiracy-driven health narratives that undermine science and public safety. Among the most vocal proponents of anti-vaccine rhetoric has been Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign of misinformation poses a clear threat not only to childhood immunization but to medical research more broadly. One might assume that the nation’s leading physician organizations, particularly major medical and pediatric associations, would respond with vigor, given their stated commitment to public health. Instead, their silence and timidity have been striking. Ironically, even a prominent politician, a polio survivor, displayed more courage in confronting Kennedy’s nomination than the very professional associations that claim to represent the moral and scientific voice of medicine. The contrast is both embarrassing and dangerous, underscoring a crisis of leadership within the medical profession.
A senior political leader, long regarded as a shrewd and calculating political actor who rarely bucks other leaders in his own party, even in the face of actions many regarded as impeachable, nonetheless demonstrated a willingness to speak directly against Kennedy’s candidacy and the dangers his views represent. He was able to articulate the risk posed by Kennedy’s crusade against vaccines with more clarity and urgency than physician-led organizations. This politician did not shrink from acknowledging the obvious: Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines, particularly the life-saving mRNA platforms developed in response to a recent global pandemic, threatens both national health security and biomedical innovation. For the leading physician organizations to remain silent in comparison betrays a failure to rise to their responsibility as the stewards of public health. When the political class takes a bolder stance in defense of medical science than the medical profession itself, the credibility of physicians’ leadership is profoundly weakened.
The danger posed by Kennedy’s rhetoric extends far beyond routine childhood immunizations. His attacks on mRNA vaccines strike at the very heart of modern medical research. These platforms, pioneered during the recent pandemic, have opened extraordinary avenues in oncology, where researchers are leveraging mRNA technology to design cancer vaccines tailored to individual patients’ tumors. Early results suggest the potential for breakthroughs that could save countless lives. Yet Kennedy’s insistence on portraying mRNA as experimental or dangerous jeopardizes public trust not only in certain vaccines but in the entire spectrum of innovations that depend on this technology. By failing to confront these claims directly, physician organizations are not merely allowing misinformation to fester; they are endangering the future of therapies that could revolutionize cancer care. Silence, in this context, is complicity.
The timid response of organized medicine reflects a broader institutional pattern: the prioritization of physicians’ professional interests over patient welfare. Throughout its history, organized medicine has often behaved more like a trade association than a public health advocate, focusing on protecting physician autonomy, reimbursement, and status. This tendency appears once again in its reluctance to engage Kennedy’s campaign. Speaking out against a high-profile political figure carries risks: of alienating segments of the population, of inviting political retaliation, or of exposing divisions among physicians themselves. By avoiding the fight, these organizations have revealed where their priorities lie: in preserving institutional comfort rather than defending science and patients. This calculus might serve short-term professional interests, but it utterly fails the broader mission of medicine. Ironically, this cowardice has not even secured the material protections these groups so often seek. Physicians find themselves facing a steady drip of reimbursement cuts amid escalating costs, and politically sidelined while their professional representatives remain conspicuously absent from the most consequential public health debate of our time. The cowardice yielded neither moral authority nor material benefit.
The stakes could not be higher. Perhaps the physician organizations and others who could have spoken up earlier wanted to give him a chance. However it is now abundantly obvious he is a clear and present danger to the health of the American public. For these peer organizations to retreat into relative silence under these circumstances is to abandon both their patients and their stated mission. Physicians are trained to diagnose and treat illness, but they are also entrusted with the public’s confidence in medical science itself. Failing to defend that trust is an abdication of professional duty.
Critics might argue that physician groups are right to avoid overt political engagement, that their credibility rests on being seen as apolitical arbiters of science rather than partisan actors. Yet this reasoning collapses when confronted with the scale of the threat. Kennedy’s crusade is not a partisan disagreement about tax rates or foreign policy; it is a direct assault on the foundations of public health. To remain silent in the face of such an assault is not neutrality; it is surrender.
The stance of these organizations has broader implications for their future credibility. When physician leaders refuse to take risks for patients, they reveal themselves as defenders not of medicine’s highest ideals but of their own institutional self-interest. The public will not fail to notice. At a time when trust in institutions is fragile, the reluctance of the nation’s largest medical organizations to confront a clear and present danger may further undermine that trust.
If physicians cannot bring themselves to stand against a threat as grave, as obvious, and as dangerous as Kennedy’s assault on vaccines, and the promise of mRNA research in the fight against cancer, then one must question whether they stand for anything at all. The nation’s physician organizations cannot credibly claim to be advocates for public health while retreating from its most urgent defense. Until they summon the courage to confront this danger directly, their advocacy will remain hollow, their leadership compromised, and their credibility fatally undermined. If organized medicine does not unite and demand the resignation of RFK Jr., why does it even exist?
Rakesh A. Shah is a diagnostic radiologist based in New York, with interests at the intersection of health and technology, the economic and political forces shaping health care, and the promotion of physician well-being. His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of the American College of Radiology, where he has written on topics including Medicare insolvency and the implications of the Affordable Care Act for imaging volumes. Dr. Shah has also published in Applied Radiology and Clinical Nuclear Medicine. You can connect with him on LinkedIn or follow his commentary on X @RakeshS86496550.
