The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., published photos of himself and his grandchildren swimming in waters that are known that they are contaminated during a Mother’s Day walk in Rock Creek Park.
In one of Sunday’s photos, Kennedy is completely submerged in the water, with his grandchildren swimming, despite an ongoing warning of the National Parks Service against contact with water in the Washington Park, DC, “due to high levels of bacteria.” The same notice says that swimming and wadeing are not allowed due to health risks.
“Stay away from the water to protect current banks, plants and animals and keep your family (including pets!) Safe from the disease,” says the advisor. “Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, vadeo and other contact with water are a danger to human health (and pet).”
Kennedy said in a publication about X Sunday that he had walked with his family and then it was for “a bathroom with my grandchildren” in Rock Creek.
Washington, DC, has banned Swimming in Rock Creek, the Potomac River and other nearby waters since 1971 as a result of pollution.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Monday night.
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A monitoring report of the microbial source published in 2022 by the DC government said that the monitoring of environmental water for Creek showed “elevated chronic levels” of E. coli. The “fecal” coliform “bacteria that are derived from wastewater are also deposited in Rock Creek, Potomac and other tax waters of the combined sewers during storms according to a 2002 report by the Water and Sewerage Authority DC.
Kennedy revealed last year that once suffered a parasitic cerebral infection known as neurocysticercosis that is linked to the larvae of pork. The condition causes seizures, headaches, blindness, blurred vision, dizziness, psychosis or memory loss. A Kennedy spokesman told the New York Times in 2024 that the problem was solved more than 10 years ago.
Kennedy’s swimming photos are the last in a series of outdoor episodes that have attracted the attention and scrutiny of the public.
Kennedy said last year that he had received a letter from the National Institute of Marine Fisheries in relation to his collection of a 20 -year whale specimen. He also said that he once picked up a bear puppy that was beaten by a truck with plans to disable it, but in his place he left him in the Park central of New York City.
