What the Senate Finance Committee put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., through on Thursday, September 4, is an instance of a long historical pattern of corporations attempting to silence those who call out exploitation and harm in pursuit of profits, in this case, working through politicians elected by the people but bought off by money-power. Throughout American history, corporate power has sought not only to neutralize its critics but also to destroy them, often using media influence and political allies in government to discredit, marginalize, and smear those who speak out.
In the face of relentless attacks on his character and motives, Kennedy stuck to his guns, arguing that mRNA vaccines fail to provide effective protection against upper-respiratory infections like COVID and flu. He insisted that government funding should be redirected toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate. In his testimony, he assured Senators that everyone still has access to vaccines, rejecting claims to the contrary as false. When asked whether mounting evidence shows mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death—especially among young people—he responded in the affirmative. For this, he was smeared as “anti-vax” and a “conspiracy theorist.” Senators called for his resignation.
It was obvious that Big Pharma was behind the witch hunt. But Big Pharma isn’t the only corporation that works to suppress criticism of its products. The corporations most responsible for shaping this climate of suppression today are among the most powerful sectors of the economy: in addition to Big Pharma, there’s the medical-industrial complex, Big Agriculture, and the chemical manufacturing industry. Each has vast financial resources, entrenched political influence, and a record of prioritizing profit over public health and ecological well-being.
Big Pharma wields its power through aggressive lobbying, marketing, and the capture of regulatory agencies meant to protect the public from the pathological pursuit of profit. One has to be naive to believe that the medical-industrial complex at large doesn’t profit from a system that treats illness as a market opportunity rather than a social problem to be prevented. Indeed, the industry is responsible for manufacturing illnesses that it can then “treat” with its wide array of nostrums. (See Making Patients for the Medical-Industrial Complex; Feeding the Medical-Industrial Complex.)
Big Agriculture relies on industrial farming practices and subsidies that sustain monocultures, chemical dependence, and ecological degradation. Chemical manufacturers churn out substances whose long-term impacts on human health and ecosystems are well-documented, while other products remain poorly studied (and for that reason their use restricted).
Together, these forces represent a modern embodiment of the same dynamics that Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader confronted long before Kennedy became a target of Big Business—those corporate giants seeking to silence critics who reveal the human costs of their business models. The stories of Carson, Nader, and Kennedy illustrate an enduring struggle between those who place the public good above profit and those who profit from keeping the truth hidden, and its critics at the margins of credibility.
Rachel Carson, a major figure in the history of environmentalism, was a marine biologist and conservationist whose 1962 book, Silent Spring, focused particularly on DDT, exposed the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use. She sounded the alarm about humanity’s capacity to disrupt ecosystems with chemicals. Carson’s work was not only scientifically rigorous but also deeply compelling to the public, blending meticulous research with accessible and evocative prose. She had a real gift for popular science writing. This made her especially dangerous in the eyes of polluting corporations.
In Silent Spring, Carson documents how pesticides accumulate in the environment, enter the food chain, and cause harm to humans and wildlife alike. She challenged the prevailing assumption that chemical pesticides were inherently safe—the industry line—and argued that the companies producing these chemicals and regulatory authorities ostensibly established to police those corporations were failing to protect the environment and public health. Before there was a word for it, she was warning the world of the phenomenon of endocrine disruption.
Carson’s work had a profound impact on my late mother, who refused to let me join my friends who peddled on their bicycles behind the “bug truck,” city vector-control vehicles spraying insecticide, most often DDT or, later, malathion, to control mosquitoes. The white cloud they moved through was the pesticide mist, and a lot of kids thought it was fun to ride their bikes through it. At the time, there wasn’t much public awareness about long-term health risks. Later, after DDT was banned in the US in 1972, people began looking back at those neighborhood spraying days very differently—especially since DDT was linked to environmental damage and potential human health concerns. Many parents didn’t think twice about letting kids ride through the mist, but thanks to Carson, my mom was ahead of her time. I have vivid memories of her frantically rushing around the house, pushing wet towels into the windowsills, cursing at the powers-that-be.
Carson’s work provoked a fierce backlash from chemical manufacturers whose economic power was threatened by her revelations. Corporations whose products she criticized launched campaigns aimed at discrediting both her science and her character. She was labeled an alarmist and accused of being a hysterical woman. Companies and their allies questioned her scientific credentials despite her extensive background. Public relations campaigns sought to undermine her arguments by warning farmers and the public that restricting pesticides would damage agriculture and progress. Industry spokespeople frequently accused Carson of exaggerating risks and stirring unnecessary panic, dismissing her evidence as anecdotal.
Years later, in my environmental sociology work, I would see Carson’s legacy in such studies as Michael Edelstein’s 1988 Contaminated Communities and Dorceta Taylor’s 2014 Toxic Communities. My own critiques of corporate polluters were sandwiched in between: “Advancing Accumulation and Managing its Discontents,” in the Sociological Spectrum (2002), and “The Neoconservative Assault on the Earth,” in Capitalism, Nature, and Socialism (2005).
Carson’s work had held up through the years, and despite the attacks on her scholarship and reputation, Carson’s landmark contribution ultimately had profound consequences for environmental policy. Public awareness of pesticide dangers surged, contributing to the eventual ban of DDT for agricultural use in the United States in 1972. Moreover, Carson’s advocacy helped catalyze the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 (for good or for bad). Her example demonstrated that well-documented science could challenge powerful corporate interests and inspire meaningful policy change.
Ralph Nader, an American consumer advocate, became a central figure in the movement for corporate accountability in the 1960s. His groundbreaking 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, exposed the automobile industry’s disregard for driver safety, particularly highlighting defects in the Chevrolet Corvair. Like Carson’s work, Nader’s work combined meticulous research and compelling argumentation, challenging powerful corporations to prioritize human life over profit. Like Carson and many whistleblowers, Nader’s efforts provoked an aggressive backlash from the industries he criticized.
In Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader documented how car manufacturers knowingly ignored safety issues that endangered drivers and passengers. He argued that the auto industry valued aesthetics and cost-saving measures over human lives, creating vehicles that were prone to accidents and injuries. Beyond detailing technical flaws, Nader emphasized the systemic failures in government regulation, showing that the federal agencies responsible for public safety were too weak or too influenced by industry to enforce meaningful standards.
Like Carson’s, Nader’s work resonated with the public, drawing attention to risks that had previously been largely invisible to everyday drivers. The response from General Motors (GM) and other industry leaders was swift and aggressive. GM in particular viewed Nader as a significant threat and engaged in a coordinated campaign to discredit him personally and professionally. The company conducted surveillance, hiring private investigators to follow him, attempting to gather damaging information on his private life—as if this had any bearing on the truth of his arguments.
Corporate executives portrayed Nader as a radical troublemaker whose activism threatened the economy and undermined American progress. Their attacks aimed less to counter his factual claims than to intimidate him and diminish his credibility in the eyes of the public. This was their only recourse, of course, since their ability to counter his claims was prebunked by the brutal truth of their harmful commodities.
Despite the pressures, Nader remained steadfast. His research and communication skills helped him withstand attempts at character assassination. Even as a young person, I remember his appearances on television. He exuded credibility. After all, what did he have to gain from his exposés other than grief? It was the public who was to gain by his success. Public support for his work grew as Americans recognized the validity of his findings.
The long-term impact of Nader’s advocacy was profound: it led to significant reforms in automobile safety, including the creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the implementation of mandatory safety features like seat belts and energy-absorbing steering columns, and a broader movement for consumer protection in numerous industries.
Carson’s and Nader’s stories are not only about environmental science or consumer safety; they are also narratives about courage in the face of powerful opposition. Both illustrate the intersection of truth, public welfare, and entrenched economic interests, exposing in real time how industries and their political allies were concerned more about suppressing inconvenient truths than cleaning up their act. Their perseverance ensured that the public could no longer ignore the human costs of unchecked corporate power. They reshaped policy, established new standards of accountability, and proved that individuals and publics armed with evidence and integrity could stand against the might of entire industries.
One often hears that Robert Kennedy, Jr., is not a doctor or a scientist and, therefore, has no credibility in his arguments. Sometimes the arguments go beyond the fallacy of appeal to authority and expertise (see The Cynical Appeal to Expertise), making sure the public is aware that Kennedy is a recovered heroin addict (which only makes him more impressive to anybody who understands the problem of addiction and knows stories of recovery). The public is also told that a worm ate his brain.
However, before his role as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy built an impressive record as an environmental and public health attorney. He fought against polluters that poisoned waterways, communities, and ecosystems, holding corporations accountable for the damage their practices inflicted on human health and the environment. His litigation through groups like Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council pitted him against powerful industries, including energy companies and chemical manufacturers, whose negligence endangered both people and the natural world.
Kennedy’s legal career reflects a consistent commitment to the principle that corporate power must be checked when it threatens human well-being. His knowledge of health and science is extensive. He brings this same activist spirit and medical and scientific knowledge into his public service role, where he confronts not just environmental hazards but also broader public health threats (such as chronic disease and radical gender ideology), continuing to challenge entrenched interests resistant to reform. His insistence that corporate power be subordinated to the health and safety of ordinary people marks him as a witch. The Senate’s treatment of him, echoing the corporate smear tactics of earlier eras, underscores the continuity of this struggle.
Just as Carson and Nader endured attacks yet left lasting legacies of reform, Kennedy’s work carries forward the principle that public health and environmental integrity must come before profit. In resisting the corporate subversion of democracy, Kennedy joins a lineage of voices that remind us that truth, though often silenced, remains the most powerful weapon against exploitation. Indeed, such accounting he gave of himself, calling out Senators for their subserviance to Big Pharma, the story quickly disappeared from the Google news aggregator. But the industry will be back.
Kennedy is the right man for the job—for the populist struggle against elite power and public harm caused by the pathological pursuit of profit. Those of us who believe in individual liberty and popular democracy must have the man’s back. At the very least, ask yourself why doctors want to jab an infant with a vaccine for a disease (hepatitis B) that is primarily transmitted through sexual contact or sharing needles—a disease that pregnant women are screened for? Is it plausible that the infant hepatitis B vaccination is promoted not for public health, but to boost profits for pharmaceutical companies? If one thinks so, then he should agree that the country needs voices like Kennedy’s in the halls of power.
For previous essays on this platform concerning Kennedy’s views see Kennedy’s Confirmation Hearing Before the Functionaries of the Corporate State and A Few Features of Corporate Tyranny.
freedom and reason 