I spent more than 30 years practicing as a physician and a neurologist until I ran for the Maine House of Representatives and served proudly from 2015-2022. During my tenure, I had the honor of serving as House chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services, the committee of the Maine Legislature having primary oversight of public health matters in our state.

Today I am active in the advocacy work of the Maine Medical Association, a professional organization of more than 4,000 physicians, residents and medical students in Maine. Having these perspectives on health care and public health in this country, I am compelled to write in opposition to the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of health and human services in the Cabinet of President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Kennedy is professionally unqualified for the position and his policy views are a serious threat to public health in the United States.

I wish to make two points.

First, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no meaningful leadership experience and is unfit to run an agency that employs more than 80,000 people. He has no demonstrated knowledge of the massive 11 agencies that comprise the department, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

His anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense, lists fewer than 10 staff members. This is not an appropriate leadership basis for Mr. Kennedy to serve in the primary leadership role in the department.

Second, Mr. Kennedy has, throughout his adult life, embraced radical conspiracy theories, including those about science and medicine. His anti-science views, if allowed to influence public health policy in our country, would set back the enormous public health gains of the past century and will hurt people.

In fact, Mr. Kennedy showed up at the State House in Augusta in 2015 to testify before the 127th Maine Legislature that the routine childhood vaccines that have protected our children from devastating diseases like polio for more than 50 years were “poison.” He has delivered similar messages in state capitals around the country.

The department’s mission is “to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health and social services.”

Effective, sound, sustained advances in the sciences? With Mr. Kennedy in charge, this mission would be quickly stuffed away. Mr. Kennedy is and always has been an advocate and currently speaks about healthy lifestyles, lessons we could all applaud. But he has been drawn down rabbit holes of conspiracy theories that are anti-science and disproven.

The Maine Medical Association’s current Statement on Reform of the U.S. Health Care System includes as a key principle of an improved health care system: Support a strong public health infrastructure that collaborates fully with health care systems to advance the health of Mainers through emphasizing the prevention of disease and addressing social determinants of health, such as poverty, education, environmental factors and nutrition.

Mainers deserve a leader at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who follows science and who is committed to this principle.