There’s something quite disconcerting about loud, uncivilized disagreements of grown-ups, that’s magnified manifold when they also write and pass our laws. I’m referring to the shouted exchanges between HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and several GOP and Democratic senators. And of course our own U.S. Sen. Michael Bennett whose dagger thrusts of logic time and again found their mark in RFK’s soft belly of ignorance.

In general thoughts about vaccines is, for many people, a non-issue. Some believe it’s a matter of personal choice rather than a general public requirement—approximating a common good. To a majority of scientists, vaccines are essential for today’s population’s well-being; a proposition opposed by Kennedy and his anti-Vaxxer acolytes. And there lies the crux of the matter.

Since HHS necessitates a degree of scientific understanding; mental curiosity and willingness to invite those better informed than oneself most past HHS secretaries have been people with some grounding in science. It’s shameful how knowledge is regarded as expendable in much of today’s America, and disturbing that many Americans are misled by non-scientists who hold court on TikTok and other platforms, spouting worthless screeds that reflect RFK’s pronouncements. If the nation’s healers are unqualified TikTok influencers, then we’re in deep trouble.

But back to the Senatorial hearings. Kennedy on questions from former members of the panel that included former physicians Barrasso and Cassidy, could not show any evidence to support his many anti-VAX contentions. Did Trump deserve a Nobel prize for authorizing MRNA’s warp speed research, they asked? Kennedy’s answer? End the $500 million mRNA vaccine research fund. His responses were always cagey and combative.

He fired Dr. Susan Monarez 29 days after her Senate confirmation as a CDC Director, for refusing to rubber-stamp his unscientific and reckless directives. Kennedy said she told him she was “untrustworthy.” Alas, scientists, are judged not for vapid, meaningless words like Kennedy’s, but for their actions and work. By contrast Monarez’s Senate appearance was calm, controlled and rational.

In their daily lives large numbers of Americans do not consider the work of the CDC. They should. As a nation, we are protected from many conditions: both bacterial and viral infections, as well as maintenance of a safe environment. That most of us are unaware of what is done to protect us is a testament to the discrete function of men and women who work anonymously, not before the glare of publicity that Kennedy cherishes.

The contrast is stark: Kennedy trumpets what he does not understand. Scientists work quietly to understand the mystery, the puzzles of disease and other phenomena that hide in darkness—by defining their essence. Science works to understand what’s often puzzling. Medical scientists investigate pathological mysteries.

To watch, listen to and ponder what RFK signifies is to get lost in the dark woods of ignorance, self-promotion, and, I’m sorry to say, greed. He and others who bray against physician scientists exploit a narrow band of America’s population that brings noise and heat to America’s argumentations about disease prevention and cure; life and death.

These are old arguments. The role of vaccines, the role of preventative procedures, and of medical therapy has been exhaustively worked out. Attempts that RFK and people like him make to appear as original thinkers falls flat.

There is no doubt that areas exist where medical care in America fails miserably – when compared to other Western societies. How we price therapeutics, how corporations—with the help of politicians—continue to profit from the system is obscene and wrong. It should be reformed. We should bring some sanity to medical practice. This is unlikely to happen as long as RFK and his supporters monopolize misinformation’s bullhorn. That he has succeeded this far shows the power of claiming victimhood and negative thought.

There’s a great deal that is sad about RFK, his family, and the man he became. To listen to his illogical thought process is to understand that we are all products of our origins. Many point to his histories of drug addiction, among other reasons to explain his discombobulated thought process. RFK’s sense of being should not cost this nation and its children their health.

Fortunately, Colorado’s health-care scientists have the support of a system that RFK and presumably the current administration will find hard to bend to institute their irrational and unscientific practices; my health-care colleagues will not countenance many of RFK’s irrational beliefs. It’s obvious, Kennedy remains in office at Trump’s discretion.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students ‘STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”