RFK Jr.’s Bold Reassurance to Anti-Vaxxers

Since becoming health secretary, Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly denied that he opposes vaccines and toned down some of his more extreme rhetoric on the subject.

But in a keynote speech today at a conference for Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization he founded, the old Kennedy was back.

He complained about safety studies, floated disproven theories about a link between vaccines and autism, and all but declared himself an anti-vaxxer.

“You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” he told the crowd.

His choice to take the stage at the conference signaled a shift.

Since becoming health secretary, Kennedy has distanced himself from Children’s Health Defense as he worked to convince the Senate that he held mainstream-enough views on vaccines.

Children’s Health Defense, meanwhile, attempts to convince parents that vaccines are a threat to their children’s well-being.

In just the past few days, CHD has used its X account to warn parents against trusting babies with health-care providers who might give them vaccines; claimed that childhood vaccines kill more children than the diseases they prevent; and alleged that COVID vaccines were designed to cause infertility.

The speakers at its conference were a who’s who of the anti-vaccine movement.

Nearly everything the organization promotes runs counter to guidance from the CDC, an agency that Kennedy leads as head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But much of Kennedy’s speech was consistent with CHD’s brand of scaremongering.

He suggested that vaccines contribute to chronic disease and disorders such as autism.

He bemoaned the fact that more vaccines are recommended for American children now than when he was a child.