RFK Jr. is Dangerous
RFK Jr. is an anti-vaxxer and he needs to be treated as such. The Senate must reject him.
America is in for a massive public health problem. That problem’s name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A once respected environmental lawyer and now deceptive anti-vaccine advocate, Kennedy has been picked by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Such an appointment means that RFK Jr. will likely continue to spread dangerous misinformation and downright unacceptable policies.1 Make no mistake, RFK Jr. is a threat to public health.
RFK Jr. Opposes Vaccination
Despite claims by RFK Jr. that he is not an anti-vaxxer, his actions and history paint a different picture. Ignoring that is not only faulty, but it is dangerous to public health. Insofar as RFK Jr. has had a public record, almost all of it can be tied directly to his anti-vaccine crusade. Previously, RFK Jr. spread the noxious and easily debunked lie that the MMR vaccine cause autism. 2 3 This claim, which originates with the now former doctor, Andrew Wakefield, was the product of faulty research, falsified medical records and illicit vaccine patents for an alternative to the MMR vaccines.4 5To this day, RFK Jr. has yet to disregard or repudiate his claim that vaccines cause autism.
Far from merely spreading misinformation and spreading a bigoted panic against autistic people, RFK Jr. has explicitly called for parents not to vaccinate their kids. In a 2021 episode of the “Health Freedom for Humanity” podcast, RFK Jr. stated that his objective was to stop parents from vaccinating their children.6
“We – our job is to resist and to talk about it to everybody. If you’re walking down the street – and I do this now myself, which is, you know, I don’t want to do – I’m not a busybody. I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated.’ And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won’t do it, you know, maybe he will save that child.” -RFK Jr. on the “Health Freedom for Humanity,” 2021.
This direct advocacy, not just to resist the use of the MMR vaccine, which reduces the risk of infection for measles, but also complete and total opposition to childhood vaccination. When RFK Jr. is with his allies, he says the quiet part out loud. When is before Congress, he lies through his teeth and claims he has never advocated for people not to vaccinate their children.7
In the simplest of terms, he is an anti-vaxxer. There is no denying it. No excusing it or any other form of obfuscation. RFK opposes vaccination. Period.
RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaccine Crusade Can Kill
Despite all protests to the contrary, RFK Jr.’s position is not merely an opinion to be respected, it is a dangerous lie that can and has led to death. In Samoa, a 2019 tragedy saw two children dead after receiving the MMR vaccine.8 It was later determined the the cause of death for these two children was not the vaccine itself, but an error by two nurses who confessed to accidentally mixing the vaccine with muscle relaxant. 9
The vaccination program would temporarily suspended and in the void of that program, anti-vaccine advocates began to spread the idea that vaccines killed children. 10 RFK Jr. would visit Samoa for several months and he openly promoted anti-vaccine activists such as Taylor Winterstein. On her Instagram at the time, Winterstein promoted her meeting with RFK Jr., saying “I am deeply honored to have been in the presence of a man I believe is, can and will change the course of history.”11
Nor was RFK Jr.’s presence in Samoa personal. Kennedy’s trip was paid for by his anti-vaccine organization, The Children’s Health Defense. According to a post by Kennedy, he went to Samoa to:
“…. attend an independence celebration and discuss with the government the introduction of a medical informatics system that would allow Samoa’s health officials to assess, in real time, the efficacy and safety of every medical intervention or drug on overall health.
Edwin Tamasese had arranged the trip and Children’s Health Defense had offered to finance the innovative system. Samoa banned certain vaccinations after several children had died following MMR vaccines the previous year.12
It is worth noting that the vaccines didn’t kill those two children, the muscle relaxant did.13 14 RFK’s presence, therefore, was an attempt to spread the idea that vaccines kill when they don’t. Even in the blog post that Kennedy wrote, he continues to spread the lie that the MMR vaccine killed two children by implication. It is worth noting that it was established that the deaths were caused by medical error via the muscle relaxant two years before Kennedy post about his Samoan trip. The nurses responsible were also jailed two years before RFK Jr. made that post.15 He had plenty of time to mention that the vaccine didn’t kill those children and plenty of time to research the issue. He chose not to.
Regardless of his post, Kennedy’s continued presence in Samoa in 2019 was part of a larger effort to promote the idea that vaccines are dangerous. According to Mother Jones, Kennedy, in the middle of a measles epidemic, sent a letter to the Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa, encouraging the Prime minister to:
“… determine, scientifically, if the outbreak was caused by inadequate vaccine coverage or alternatively, by a defective vaccine.” 16
By the time the epidemic was over, 83 people were dead, most of whom were children.17 While RFK Jr. may not have directly caused the epidemic, he certainly contributed to its continuation and openly opposed emergency efforts by the Samoan government to stop anti-vaccine propaganda from spreading even as said lies were killing its people, especially children.
Vaccines, not just MMR, save lives. A study published by the Lancet, found that “Between June 1, 1974, and May 31, 2024, vaccination programs…” were responsible for preventing “…154 million deaths.”18 Vaccines are a medical miracle and no reasonable person should ever hope to live in a world without them. Unfortunately, RFK Jr. is not a reasonable person, and neither is the President-elect.
There can be no question about the future of American public health with RFK Jr. at the helm of the HHS. People will get sick, and could even die. Simply chalking this reality up to media hysteria or partisanship is not only absurd, it is morally reprehensible. The Senate must firmly reject this nomination and protect Americans from the deadly and inaccurate hysteria that is the anti-vaccine movement.
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Originally published at https://theprogressiveamerican.com on November 20, 2024.
Aaron Pellish, Kristen Holmes, and Kaitlin Collins, “Trump Picks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Be His Department of Health and Human Services Secretary,” CNN, November 14, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/robert-f-kennedy-donald-trump-hhs/index.html. ↩︎
Jake Tapper, “RFK Jr.’s Reign of Error: Correcting the Record about yet Another False Claim He Just Made | CNN Politics,” CNN, June 22, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-vaccines/index.html. ↩︎
Daniel Dale, “Fact Check: RFK Jr. Claimed He’s Never Told People to Avoid Vaccination. He Did – Less than Two Years Ago | CNN Politics,” CNN, July 21, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/21/politics/fact-check-rfk-not-anti-vax/index.html. ↩︎
Julia Belluz, “Research Fraud Catalyzed the Anti-Vaccination Movement. Let’s Not Repeat History.,” Vox, February 27, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/2/27/17057990/andrew-wakefield-vaccines-autism-study. ↩︎
Julia Belluz, “The Research Linking Autism to Vaccines Is Even More Bogus than You Think,” Vox, February 2, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/2/2/7965885/vaccine-autism-link-false-evidence-wakefield. ↩︎
“Brandy Zadrozny on X: ‘That’s Just Not True. Here He Is in 2021, on a Podcast. He Said He Accosts People Carrying Babies on Hiking Trails and in Grocery Stores, Urging Them Not to Vaccinate, “to Save” the Children. Say His Fellow Anti-Vaxxers Should “Come out of the Closet.” Https://T.Co/8DwqyzKNHb’ / X,” accessed November 20, 2024, https://x.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1682051745772367872. ↩︎
Brandy Zadrozny [@BrandyZadrozny], “RFK Jr Told a Congressional Subcommittee Today That He’s Not Anti-Vaxx and Has Never Told the Public Not to Get Vaccinated. Https://T.Co/EOMnZXjS4z,” Tweet, Twitter, July 20, 2023, https://x.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1682045997432668160. ↩︎
Lena Sun, Neena Satija, and Ben Guarino, “Deadly Measles Outbreak Hits Children in Samoa after Anti-Vaccine Fears – The Washington Post,” The Washington Post, November 27, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/11/26/deadly-measles-outbreak-hits-children-samoa-after-anti-vaccine-fears/. ↩︎
Sammy Westfall and Lena H. Sun, “Global Health Experts Sound Alarm over RFK Jr., Citing Samoa Outbreak,” Washington Post, November 15, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-global-health-samoa-kennedy/. ↩︎
David Corn, “How RFK Jr. Falsely Denied His Connection to a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Samoa,” Mother Jones (blog), accessed November 20, 2024, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/how-rfk-jr-falsely-denied-his-connection-to-a-deadly-measles-outbreak-in-samoa/. ↩︎
Taylor Winterstein, “Taylor Winterstein on Instagram #bebrave #dothestudy #believemothers #proscience #prosafety #informedconsent #makinginformedchoices #investigatebeforeyouvaccinate #tays_way_,’” Instagram, June 4, 2019, ↩︎
Robert Kennedy Jr., “Leading Samoa Medical Freedom Hero Goes Free After Court Case Dismissed,” Children’s Health Defense (blog), accessed November 20, 2024, https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lsamoa-medical-freedom-hero-court-case-dismissed/. ↩︎
“‘Her Body Was Turning Black’: Samoan Nurses Jailed for Infant Vaccination Deaths,” ABC News, August 2, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-02/samoa-nurses-sentenced-manslaughter-infant-vaccination-deaths/11378494. ↩︎
“How a Wrong Injection Helped Cause Samoa’s Measles Epidemic,” BBC News, December 2, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50625680. ↩︎
“How a Wrong Injection Helped Cause Samoa’s Measles Epidemic,” BBC News, December 2, 2019. ↩︎
David Corn, “How RFK Jr. Falsely Denied His Connection to a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Samoa,” Mother Jones, July 2, 2024, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/how-rfk-jr-falsely-denied-his-connection-to-a-deadly-measles-outbreak-in-samoa/.. ↩︎
David Corn, “How RFK Jr. Falsely Denied His Connection to a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Samoa,” Mother Jones, July 2, 2024, . ↩︎
Andrew J Shattock et al., “Contribution of Vaccination to Improved Survival and Health: Modelling 50 Years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization,” The Lancet 403, no. 10441 (May 2024): 2312, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00850-X. ↩︎