How much longer can responsible people work for President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
That question arises every time Kennedy pulls funding for vaccine research or purges respected scientists at the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force or the Food and Drug Administration.
For a while, it looked like even vaccine critics weren’t safe in the Trump administration.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Vinay Prasad established his reputation as a contrarian, expressing reservations about pediatric vaccination and several common mitigation measures. It was thus no surprise when he was appointed director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which covers vaccine policy.
Prasad didn’t last three months on the job. He resigned abruptly in late July following attacks by right-wing figures such as Laura Loomer, who labeled him a “progressive leftist saboteur.”
A Health and Human Services statement cited Prasad’s desire to spend more time with his family. It has been widely reported, however, that Trump himself forced Prasad’s departure, despite the objection of FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
In another abrupt move, only 10 days later, Prasad abruptly returned to the FDA, evidently at Makary’s request but otherwise without explanation.
While some of Prasad’s views remain quite controversial among many highly regarded physicians and scientists, it is certainly reassuring to see Loomer’s malign influence diminished at the FDA.
Nonetheless, Kennedy is still in charge of the entire department, and it is likely only a matter of time until he resumes appointing resolute anti-vaxxers, if not widely discredited would-be “scientists,” to key committees.
Makary and Prasad, and other well-credentialed scientists, no doubt believe they can overcome Kennedy’s destabilization of medical research, while still contributing to public health.
Maybe they are right, and the wisest course is to hold on as long as possible, trying to do good. After all, there is no telling who would replace them.
On the other hand, it seems inevitable that Kennedy’s pronouncements will increasingly become intolerable. Some CDC employees already worry that the recent deadly attack on their building in Atlanta was motivated by “RFK Jr’s lies about vax safety and CDC scientists.”
Meanwhile, Trump has announced that political appointees will soon take over scientific research grant approval, displacing actual scientists, in order to “advance the President’s policy priorities.”
At some point in the degradation of science, there must be a line that ethical administrators will not cross. There is no single answer to whether an official should stay or withdraw from a compromising position, but history does provide cautionary tales.
In 1854, a Massachusetts judge named Edward Loring reached a sincere but tragic decision. I described the events in my book, “Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial.”
Late that spring, a fugitive from slavery named Anthony Burns, was arrested in Boston and brought before Loring, a federal commissioner under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as well as judge of the Massachusetts Probate Court.
Burns’s arrest sparked mass protests in Boston, where anti-slavery sentiment was strong. Many Bostonians called upon Loring to resign from the federal commissioner’s position. As a probate judge, he administered the estates of widows and orphans, which required compassion, and it was intolerable for him to be involved in the heartless business of slave-hunting.
Loring took the criticism to heart, responding with a published statement.
“It is said that the statute is so cruel and wicked that it should not be executed by good men,” he wrote. But that would create a paradox. If humane judges were all to resign, “then into what hands should its administration fall? Will those who call the statute merciless commit it to a merciless judge?”
Although he had deep misgivings about the Fugitive Slave Act, Loring believed he had a duty to preside. Otherwise, judging would “be confined to those who are reckless of that right in others, or ignorant or careless of the means given for its legal defense, or dishonest in their use.”
Those who wish this, Loring continued, “are more cruel and wicked than the statute, for they would strip from the fugitive the best security and every alleviation the statute leaves them.”
Despite his protestations, Loring ruled in favor of the slaveholder, holding that it was required under the law. He sent Burns to Virginia in chains, where he was starved and abused.
Burns’s supporters, meanwhile, demonstrated the true meaning of humanity by raising funds to obtain his freedom. Burns returned to Boston and later studied theology at Oberlin College, no thanks to Loring.
It turned out that a “good judge,” as Loring believed himself, could not honorably enforce a pitiless law in a racist regime. He was dismissed from the Harvard Law School faculty, and the Massachusetts legislature removed him from the Probate Court.
Loring is remembered today, if at all, as an enabler of slavery.
Perhaps health officials are currently echoing Loring’s lament. “If I resign, someone very bad will take my place.” But sometimes, complicity is complicity.
Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
