President Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who tried to halt vaccine rollout during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Ahead of Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearing, Americans must consider the following information on his candidacy:
Anti-Vaccine Activism
Kennedy, both individually and through his anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, has sown doubt around vaccines’ safety and endorsed numerous anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, including that vaccines cause autism, allergies, and depression.
In May 2021, Kennedy’s nonprofit petitioned the FDA in an attempt to halt the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2018, when two Samoan infants died after nurses administered a vaccine that they had mistakenly prepared with muscle relaxant instead of water, the Samoan government temporarily suspended its vaccination program, and Kennedy and his nonprofit took the incident as an opportunity to flood the country with anti-vaccine misinformation. The following year, a deadly measles outbreak swept through the country, during which Kennedy and his nonprofit’s staff suggested that vaccines were responsible and advised local practitioners to treat the disease with vitamins.
Conspiracy Theories
Kennedy has claimed that wireless technology emits cancer-causing radiation and that 5G towers are being used to “harvest our data and control our behavior.”
Kennedy has claimed that COVID-19 is a “bioweapon” “targeted to attack Caucasians and black people” and that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” are the “most immune” from it. He has also claimed that the United States is funding “labs in the Ukraine” to collect Russian and Chinese DNA “so that we can target people by race” using similar bioweapons.
Kennedy has suggested that chemicals in water are responsible for gender transitions.
Kennedy has cast doubt on whether HIV causes AIDS, instead blaming “poppers” and “the gay lifestyle.”
Junk Science Funding
President Donald Trump has said that Kennedy will use HHS resources to investigate unsupported links between vaccines and autism. In the past, Kennedy’s nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, has produced junk science studies and other content relying on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, a frontline warning system that does not verify reports and is habitually misused in anti-vaccine propaganda.
Financial Conflicts of Interest
If confirmed as Health Secretary, Kennedy would continue to collect a portion of legal fees won by an affiliated law firm against vaccine manufacturer Merck while administering HHS’ vaccine court, the legal entity presiding over the case. Kennedy has retained his claim to these fees despite the clear financial conflict of interest.
Voter Fraud Accusation
Kennedy may have committed voter fraud––a felony offense––by casting his ballot in New York using an address that a court had previously ruled was not his place of residence.
How RFK’s Confirmation Could Threaten Americans’ Health
Kennedy Could Disrupt Americans’ Access to Lifesaving Vaccines and Disrupt Herd Immunity
Kennedy could interfere with the FDA’s petition review process on behalf of anti-vaccine allies in their attempts to revoke the approvals of lifesaving vaccines. In recent years, Kennedy’s nonprofit petitioned the FDA to review its approval of COVID-19 vaccines, and affiliated lawyers initiated a review of the polio vaccine.
Kennedy could lower the vaccine requirements set by the childhood immunization schedule, disrupting herd immunity.
Kennedy Could Dismantle Vaccine Research Efforts
Kennedy could halt federal contracts to vaccine developers.
Kennedy could dismantle federal vaccine research programs like the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center.
Kennedy could remove COVID-19 vaccines’ liability shield, which would likely spur a wave of injury lawsuits against COVID-19 vaccines’ manufacturers. This could harm the country’s pandemic readiness by disincentivizing further vaccine development efforts and potentially crippling manufacturers at the cutting edge of vaccine research.
Kennedy Could Encourage Other Dangerous Health Practices
Kennedy has advocated for drinking raw milk, which can contain parasites like salmonella and E. coli, and has pledged to end the FDA’s “aggressive suppression” of it, which could see pasteurization requirements impacted.
Kennedy has advocated for removing fluoride from drinking water, which could lead to increased rates of tooth decay.
While the FDA has taken a cautious approach to stem cell treatments, Kennedy has endorsed them wholeheartedly, seemingly ignoring the grave health risks they can pose when administered by a new and poorly regulated cottage industry.
Kennedy Could Revoke Access to Abortion Medication
Kennedy could disrupt access to abortion medication in a variety of ways, such as requiring it to be dispensed in-person or interfering with the FDA’s review of petitions seeking to overturn its approval of mifepristone, a key element of the medication abortion.
Kennedy Could Harm Minors’ Access to Gender-Affirming Care
Kennedy has stated that he believes that individuals should delay gender-affirming care until adulthood and could enact policies targeting hospitals and care centers that offer these treatments.
Kennedy Could Drive Out Career HHS Scientists and Other Civil Servants
Kennedy’s nomination could spur an exodus of hard-to-replace civil servants from the FDA, NIH, CDC, and other agencies within HHS.
