Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew sharp criticism after saying, at a Republican campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that the world’s roughly 500 million Arabs do not produce science. Speaking on the campaign trail on Monday, days before the midterm elections, Kennedy also said Arabs do not win the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal or the Wolf Prize, and do not produce literature. Critics condemned the remarks overnight as untrue and racially biased. An HHS representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The record contradicts the claim. Egyptian diplomat and law scholar Mohamed El Baradei shared the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he previously chaired, for efforts to keep nuclear energy from being used for military purposes. Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni journalist, politician and human rights activist, was a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni and the first Arab woman to win it. Egyptian-American scientist Ahmed Zewail received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry, and Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.
Further examples include Jordanian-born chemist Omar M. Yaghi, one of three chemists awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize, who also won the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. Sir Michael Atiyah, of Lebanese descent, was a Fields medalist in 1966. Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with former Israeli Prime Ministers Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for their efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. Former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat shared the 1978 prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after the Camp David Accords.
Kennedy made the comments while campaigning for Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, who has accused his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization. El-Sayed has disavowed the group, and President Donald Trump has also accused him of being a member. Kennedy said the Muslim Brotherhood had destroyed a tradition of Islamic scholarship that he cited from the 13th century, and argued that the group had created stagnant societies focused on hatred, war and victimization. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and banned there in 2013. Jordan announced a sweeping ban on the organization last year, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain designated it a terrorist group in 2014. The U.S. has labeled several Middle Eastern branches of the group as terrorist organizations.
Critics responded sharply. Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said in a statement that “this wasn’t the first time RFK Jr has trafficked in racism, but it may be his ugliest episode yet,” referring to Kennedy’s 2024 remarks on a podcast that Black children with ADHD on medication should be “re-parented.” Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, said on social media that Zewail would have disagreed with Kennedy, noting that Arab scientists of the Middle Ages preserved the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen for transmission to the Renaissance.
Kennedy is scheduled to be a special guest at the “Make Iowa Healthy Again Rally” in Des Moines on Wednesday.
14
