Since being nominated as Americas new health czar, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said and done a lot of questionable stuff, the latest of which is to share his disturbing approach to the bird flu epidemic. RFKs strategy for protecting the nations fowl population? Eh, just let the flu cull the herd and see if anything good comes out of it. The New York Times reports that Kennedy has been suggesting that to defeat bird flu, you first have to let it get its groove on. The Times quotes a recent Fox News interview, in which Kennedy told the news channels listeners that America should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to ita notion Kennedy has offered multiple times. Thankfully, as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy is only responsible for human health, not bird health (the Department of Agriculture is the point agency for that). Still, its not necessarily super comforting that Kennedys first impulse when he hears about a communicable illness is to just sit back and let it do its thing. Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas, told the Times that Kennedys plan was a really terrible idea, for any one of a number of reasons, also calling it a recipe for disaster. Experts like Hansen seem to agree that giving the virus a free pass to spread would just allow it to mutate and grow more powerful. Indeed, other current and former federal officials and scientists that the newspaper spoke to all said that stepping back and letting bird flu ravage domestic chicken populations was really only a recipe for lost farm profits and more dead birds. Kennedys strategy (and the apparent worldview that informs it) also seems to hammer home the point that he is, on a fundamental level, unqualified to head the HHS. The Times writes: The strategy means longer quarantine, more downtime, more lost revenue and increased expenses, said a U.S.D.A. scientist who was not authorized to speak to the media. Mr. Kennedy has suggested that a subset of poultry might be naturally immune to bird flu. But chickens and turkeys lack the genes needed to resist the virus, experts said. The way we raise birds now, theres not a lot of genetic variability, Dr. Hansen said. Theyre all the same bird, basically. This seems like yet another good example of whywhen it comes to finding someone to lead the nations most powerful scientific policy and research organizationnominating a guy who self-admittedly isnt a scientist and doesnt know anything about science might have been a stupid idea. But hey, while it seems increasingly unlikely that Kennedy can protect us from easily preventable illnesses like measles, and while hes demonstrated a willingness to cut funding to critically important health research (including cancer treatments), and while he doesnt seem particularly concerned that a nationwide chicken plague has been driving up egg prices, at least hes made America safe for tallow again, right? Yeah, tasty french fries are a good tradeoff for the breakdown of national health policy.