{"id":3418,"date":"2026-10-28T12:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3418"},"modified":"2026-10-28T12:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:03:48","slug":"us-health-chief-faces-backlash-over-his-anti-arab-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3418","title":{"rendered":"US health chief faces backlash over his anti-Arab remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced widespread rebuke from civil \u200brights groups, healthcare advocates and Democrats on Tuesday over his anti-Arab comments that the Council on American-Islamic \u200cRelations cast as \u201ca textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his remarks on Monday at a campaign event in Michigan where Republican Mike Rogers is running for the US Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the US health secretary falsely claimed that Arabs had not won major \u200binternational awards and \u201cdon\u2019t produce\u201d science and literature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don\u2019t produce \u200bscience, they don\u2019t win the Nobel Prize, they don\u2019t win the Fields prize, they don\u2019t win \u2060the Wolf Prize, they don\u2019t produce literature,\u201d the US health chief said.<\/p>\n

Arabs have won all those prizes. Peter Hotez, who \u200bis a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine and specialises in vaccine development and tropical medicine, said his late \u200bcolleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, who was Arab and died in 2016, \u201cwould disagree\u201d with the US health chief\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

US rights advocates have raised concerns over escalating rhetoric<\/a> against Muslims, Arabs, immigrants and \u200bethnic minorities by<\/a> President Donald Trump<\/a> and his allies during the ongoing midterm election campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s vile anti-Arab rant is a \u200btextbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry,\u201d the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which documents hate against Muslims and Arabs in the US, \u200csaid on \u2060Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis sweeping erasure of Arab contributions to humanity is not only maliciously false, but it also fans the flames of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate at a time when communities are already vulnerable to bigoted attacks from other public officials nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy said the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world\u2019s oldest and most influential Islamist groups founded almost a \u200bcentury ago, has \u201ccreated stagnant societies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans have \u200bclaimed, without evidence, that El-Sayed \u2060has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood even as the Democrat has publicly disavowed<\/a> the group and denied any connection to it.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed, who is Muslim, has faced a host of anti-Muslim attacks during \u200bthe campaign.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Trump invoked<\/a> the September 11, 2001, attacks when speaking about \u200bEl-Sayed, whom he \u2060has also repeatedly and falsely called<\/a> a \u201cjihadist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy also responded to the US health secretary\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimise Muslim Americans \u2014 not just as citizens but as humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

US healthcare advocacy organisation \u2060and nonprofit \u200bProtect Our Care cast Kennedy\u2019s comments as a \u201cwildly racist tirade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy, who has \u200bpushed his anti-vaccine views in his role as the top health official, was also in Michigan on Monday to promote funding for Detroit\u2019s health department \u200band touted agreements with hospitals to offer healthier food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced widespread rebuke from civil \u200brights groups, healthcare advocates and Democrats on Tuesday over his anti-Arab comments that the Council on American-Islamic \u200cRelations cast as \u201ca textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry.\u201d In his remarks on Monday at a campaign event in Michigan where Republican Mike Rogers is running for the US Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the US health secretary falsely claimed that Arabs had not won major \u200binternational awards and \u201cdon\u2019t produce\u201d science and literature. \u201cThere are 500 million Arabs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}