Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a bizarre photo featuring a lizard, comedian Russell Brand and a shirtless Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Kennedy, sworn into his cabinet position last week, shared the photo Sunday afternoon on X with the caption: “Northern Curly Tailed Lizard with Russel Brand & Dr Oz.” The photo shows Brand with his arm around the other two as Kennedy and Oz smile at the camera.
The trio have long been intertwined. Brand endorsed Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign last year. Meanwhile, Trump nominated Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a position in which he’d work closely with Kennedy.
The three have also spread health misinformation online throughout their careers.
Kennedy is himself an anti-vaccine activist, having spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and spreading the baseless claim that vaccines are linked to autism.
Kennedy has made other inflammatory remarks, including suggesting that Anne Frank was in a better situation when she hid from Nazis than Americans were under COVID-19 mandates and claiming COVID-19 was a “bioweapon” that targets “Caucasians and Black people” while sparing Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese people.
However, he denied being “anti-vaccine” and even revealed his own children are vaccinated during his Senate confirmation hearing.
“News reports have claimed I am anti-vaccine and anti-industry. I am neither,” Kennedy said.
“I am pro-safety,” he added. “I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, and nobody called me anti-fish.”
Oz similarly used his TV series, The Dr Oz Show, to repeatedly spread medical misinformation, including by promoting a dubious supplement for cancer prevention and falsely claiming apple juice in the U.S. contained “troubling” levels of arsenic, The Independent previously reported. These claims were disproven by peer-reviewed studies and federal health agencies.
The TV personality also falsely claimed the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine can treat COVID-19. The FDA and World Health Organization have both said it’s unsafe to treat the viral infection, and a French study last year estimated that 16,990 patients in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Turkey may have died as a result of the drug.
Brand, a British comedian, has also spread baseless conspiracy theories on the COVID-19 vaccine, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the climate crisis.
Two years ago, four women also accused the 49-year-old of sexual assault between 2006 and 2013. Brand has denied these allegations, claiming all of his relationships have been “consensual.”
