RFK Jr. Swims in Sewage-Tainted Creek with Grandchildren Despite National Park Service’s Bacteria Warning

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. swam successful a creek successful Washington, D.C., that has been deemed unsafe owed to its precocious levels of bacteria

• Kennedy, the Health and Human Services secretary, took his young grandchildren on for the aquatics and posted photos of them by the h2o with him

• The National Park Service has warned that Rock Creek could person unsafe pathogens harmful to pets and humans

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plunged into a creek deemed a "hazard" to quality wellness arsenic portion of his Mother's Day celebrations connected Sunday, May 11.

The Department of Health and Human Services secretary, 71, posted photos to X of himself and his household astatine Rock Creek Park successful Washington, D.C. In 1 of the images, Kennedy is afloat submerged with his caput underwater. In another, helium holds 1 of his grandchildren arsenic the child's feet dip into the creek. The National Park Service banned swimming and wading successful the creek owed to "high bacteria levels" successful the water.

"Mother’s Day hike successful Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a aquatics with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius successful Rock Creek," Kennedy captioned his station connected Sunday.

The NPS warns that imaginable infectious pathogens successful Rock Creek — a tributary of the Potomac River — could airs a hazard to quality and favored health. The bureau urges visitors, "Please support yourself and your pooches by staying connected trails and retired of the creek."

Many of D.C.'s waterways are not acceptable for recreational swimming owed successful portion to contamination from the city's sewer system, which is much than 200 years old, according to The Hill. The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority precocious recovered a 200-foot-long fracture successful the ceiling of a sewer passageway adjacent to Rock Creek.

Kennedy, who challenged the thought that germs origin illness successful his 2021 publication The Real Anthony Fauci, has a agelong past of dubious wellness claims. He precocious incorrectly stated that the MMR vaccine includes "aborted fetus debris," and said vertebrate flu should beryllium allowed to dispersed connected farms, suggesting the infected birds should beryllium isolated and near to breed, not culled.

In precocious March, Dr. Peter Marks, a apical vaccine authoritative astatine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), resigned, and listed Kennedy's enactment astatine HHS arsenic 1 of the factors that drove him out.

“It has go wide that information and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but alternatively helium wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” helium wrote astatine the time.

The HHS caput astir precocious came nether occurrence for his remarks astir radical with autism, alleging that they are incapable to unrecorded normal, afloat lives and are "suffering." His words sparked contiguous backlash, including from Holly Robinson Peete, whose lad was diagnosed with autism, and Big Brother contestant Kyland Young, who was diagnosed astatine property 30.

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Kennedy's cousins adjacent penned an unfastened missive blasting his "slurs and statements" astir radical diagnosed with autism.

"We person been reminded again and again that radical with autism tin and volition proceed to beryllium fantastic children, brothers and sisters, and members of families," work the associated missive from Best Buddies Founder & CEO Anthony K. Shriver and his brother, Special Olympics International Chairman Timothy Shriver.

HHS did not instantly respond to PEOPLE's petition for comment.

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