Former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha called out Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he bizarrely claimed that he can identify kids who are facing “mitochondrial challenges” just by looking at them.
“I’m sorry, but what?” Jha wrote in an X post on Wednesday alongside a clip of RFK Jr. making the comments. “Our Health Secretary says that he sees kids at airports and can tell by their faces that they have mitochondrial challenges.”
Ja, who served as the White House COVID-19 response coordinator from 2022 to 2023 under the Biden administration, added: “This is wacky, flat-earth, voodoo stuff people. This is not normal.”
Kennedy, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, uttered the comments as he joined Gov. Greg Abbott (R) at the Texas Capitol in Austin to sign three bills inspired by the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda that aims to reform America’s food and health.
“I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, I see these kids that are just overburdened by mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation,” RFK Jr. said.
He added: “You can tell from their faces, from their body movements and from their lack of social connection. And I know that that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”
The United States Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
“I came from a big family. I have seven kids, I had 11 brothers and sisters, I had about 70 first cousins, and I never saw anyone with diabetes, never knew anyone with a food allergy, never knew anyone with autism,” he said.
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Meanwhile, Kennedy vowed in July that the HHS would identify and address what’s causing the “autism epidemic” by September.