RFK Jr.: bearly confirmed

By BRUCE LOWITT

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., confirmed by the Senate Thursday as health and human services secretary, was briefly hospitalized when he refused medication to counter the rabies symptoms he experienced during a celebratory lunch with Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Cryptoqueen, in her Washington, D.C., office.

Lummis, an avid hunter of anything in Wyoming with four feet or wings, acknowledged that she served Kennedy a portion of a grizzly bear she had killed in September near Yellowstone National Park. “I had it frozen and shipped to my office for just such an occasion,” she said. “But I didn’t think grizzlies could get rabies.”

“I don’t know what it is with me and bears,” Kennedy said. “First there was the dead cub I dumped in Central Park. And now this … this … filet of grizzly.” Fortunately, he added, the bear steak served by Lummis was taste-tested by Dr. Mehmet Oz and cleared of any possible diseases.

“And if any of the bear meat had been infected,” Oz said, “Bobby knows from his vast medical knowledge that he could’ve avoided any problems by taking a few days’ worth of my Garcinia cambogia, not to mention chlorogenic acid, the main ingredient in my green coffee beans.”

Kennedy, who said he recently recovered from a ninth bout of COVID, claimed he “must have gotten the rabies-like symptoms” when he was scratched by the rapier-like fingernails of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller when the two shook hands in the Senate following Kennedy’s confirmation by a narrow 52-48 party-line vote.

“I bled a little bit, really just a tiny bit, on my right wrist from the cut,” Kennedy said, “but I didn’t feel any pain. I was about to ask if anyone had any Band-Aids when Stephen interrupted, grabbed my arm and said he knew ‘exactly how to handle a bloody situation like this.’

“Then he sucked on my wrist while humming Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” Kennedy said. “Anyway, after about a minute he purred, ‘We’re both fine,’ licked his lips and took off like a bat out of hell.”