RFK Testified Before HELP. It Went Badly.

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Rachel Cohrs Zhang and Matthew Herper at STAT:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refused to confirm to senators that he believes vaccines do not cause autism during his confirmation hearing Thursday, appearing to jeopardize support in his effort to become health secretary with at least one key Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy.

...

“Will you reassure mothers unequivocally and without qualification, that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism?” Cassidy asked.

“If the data is there, I will absolutely do that,” RFK Jr. said.

There are more than a dozen studies showing that vaccination is not associated with autism, including studies specifically focused on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine; studies focused on the mercury-containing ingredient thimerosal; and studies focused on the question of whether getting too many vaccines results in a higher risk of autism. All of them show that the shots do not increase rates of autism. 

That includes 13 large observational studies conducted in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to claims of a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, and also later studies of other ideas about how vaccines might cause autism. For instance, a 2013 study showed that having more antibodies from receiving vaccines did not mean children had a higher risk of being autistic.

...

RFK Jr.’s performance did not appear to assure Cassidy, who laid out a possible rationale for rejecting the nominee’s confirmation. Throughout Wednesday and Thursday’s hearings, Cassidy questioned whether RFK Jr. is the right person to advance Trump’s health care agenda on Medicaid and public health.

 Cassidy said he wants Trump to succeed as a Republican, but he worries that if someone doesn’t get vaccinated “because of [RFK Jr.’s] policies or attitudes” and later dies of a vaccine-preventable disease, that it could get “blown up in the press.”

“The greatest tragedy will be her death. But I can also tell you an associated tragedy… that will cast a shadow over President Trump’s legacy,” Cassidy said. 

Bernie Sanders and Maggie Hassan also took him to task. 

BERNIE SANDERS: Vaccines do not cause autism. Do you agree?

RFK Jr: As I said, I'm not going into HHS with any preordained--

SANDERS: I asked you a simple question, Bobby

RFK Jr: If you show me those studies ...

SANDERS: That is a very troubling response pic.twitter.com/8g83Ev6647

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2025

.@SenatorHassan's comments about her own child get at something that's rarely discussed when we talk about Kennedy's anti-vaccine industry and the "autism warrior moms" that power his movement. It's predatory and diverts resources from actual research and treatments. pic.twitter.com/ULxiM4ligS

— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) January 30, 2025

RFK Jr Stumbles at Hearing

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Please stop whatever you are doing and watch this.

The charlatan snake oil merchant RFK on the ropes as his very own words become knockout blows.pic.twitter.com/pcaUEPJgW0

— Otto English (@Otto_English) January 29, 2025

 Joanne Kenen at Politico:

He flip-flopped on vaccines. His answers on the health care system, particularly Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, were sloppy.

He got the programs mixed up. He got the numbers mixed up. He got the financing mixed up.

To put it mildly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing today to become Health and Human Services secretary didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Many of us who write about or work in health care occasionally say Medicare when we mean Medicaid — but we catch ourselves and fix it. We don’t get it wrong again and again through a three-plus hour hearing when we’re shooting for the top health job in the country.

Between them, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA cover somewhere around 170 million Americans — that’s roughly a third of the U.S. population. Oversight and regulation of those government health systems is under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Trump wants Dr. Mehmet Oz to run that. But CMS is part of HHS. As secretary, Kennedy would be atop it all.

Yet he got them all jumbled up — and said they don’t work. And that everyone hates them.

In one rambling answer, Kennedy said Medicare is paid for by employer taxes (in fact, it’s employer taxes, employee taxes, premiums, deductibles and tax dollars). He said Medicaid is “fully-paid for by the federal government” (no, it’s split with the states.).

“Medicaid is not working for Americans,” he continued. “It is specifically not working for the target population. Most Americans like myself are — I’m on Medicare Advantage and I’m very happy with it. For most people, Medicaid is not working. The premiums are too high. The deductibles are too high. The networks are narrow. The best doctors will not accept it. The best hospitals will not accept it. The poorest Americans are being robbed.”

Medicare Advantage has nothing to do with Medicaid. States cannot charge the poorest people Medicaid premiums, and they can impose only very modest costs on people a little further up the income chain. Kennedy is right, though, that a lot of doctors won’t take it because payment is low. Cutting it, as Republicans hope to do, won’t fix that.

RFK Jr.: A Disaster for Autistic People

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Natasha Korecki at NBC:

[A]utism advocates say they are fearful that if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as health and human services secretary, it could undermine years of progress in unlinking autism and vaccines, while potentially diverting precious research dollars to a theory already discredited by hundreds of studies worldwide. They warn he would wield vast influence over who sits on committees and steer policy.

And some condemned Kennedy’s past rhetoric around the disability, calling it stigmatizing and insulting.

...

“I do believe that autism comes from vaccines,” Kennedy asserted to Fox News in 2023.

He went on to say that his position was misunderstood; he just wants to test the science behind them. But it’s Kennedy who rejects the science in front of him, critics say.

“Are we [also] reviewing the question about whether the Earth is flat? This is settled science,” said Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., who previously worked as a pediatrician. “We already looked into vaccines. They don’t cause autism, but let’s look elsewhere. And elsewhere might be genetics. It might be the fact that now we’re putting a lot more kids under the umbrella of autism who never would have fallen under that umbrella before. … It could be a lot of things, but bringing up settled science is only going to undermine confidence in vaccines, decrease immunization rates and put the entire population at risk.”

...

“I bet you’ve never met anybody with full-blown autism your age,” Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan in 2023, launching into a script he often uses in public appearances. “You know, head-banging, football helmet on, nontoilet trained, nonverbal. I mean, I’ve never met anybody like that at my age, but in my kids’ age now, one in every 34 kids has autism. And half of those are full blown.”

...

Zoe Gross, director of advocacy with the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, noted that the autism diagnosis was still evolving in the ‘60s. She held up Willowbrook as an example of how those with developmental and other types of disabilities were once hidden from society.

“If you look at the video of the conditions that the people in Willowbrook were in, you’ll see the people that RFK Jr. describes as having been missing through his childhood. And you’ll see where they went, where they were forced to go,” Gross said.

...

“He uses this belief that vaccines cause autism to spread a very stigmatizing and negative image of autism, where he says, for example, someone has a vaccine and their ‘brain is gone,’” Gross said of Kennedy. “And by saying their brain is gone, he means they’re autistic.”

Gross, who is autistic, was referencing a 2015 remark by Kennedy in which he compared vaccinating children to the Holocaust. He later apologized for his remarks.

“They get the shot, that night they have a fever of 103 [degrees], they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone,” Kennedy said then. “This is a Holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”

Gross called it “fearmongering,” saying: “The idea behind making this link is that it’s better to die of pertussis as a baby than to live as an autistic person.”

KFF Survey Results on Autism and Vaccines

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.   Even before COVID, they were fighting vaccine mandates and other public health measures. 

Audrey Kearney et al. at KFF:

Amid shifting attitudes toward childhood vaccines, many adults – including parents – continue to report hearing myths that MMR vaccines are linked to autism, and many are uncertain about whether to believe this false claim. About two-thirds (63%) of adults overall and parents (67%) say they have heard the false claim that the MMR vaccines have been proven to cause autism in children, a claim that began with a since-retracted study in the 1990s and has recently been associated with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The share reporting they have heard this claim remains unchanged since 2023.

As previous KFF polls have found when it comes to health misinformation on a range of topics, many adults fall in the “malleable middle,” expressing some level of uncertainty about this false health claim. Just three percent of adults say it is “definitely true” that the MMR vaccines have been proven to cause autism in children. A larger share (20%) is open to believing the myth, saying it is “probably true,” while many lean toward the correct answer but still express uncertainty, saying the claim is “probably false” (41%). One-third of adults say it is “definitely false.” Most Republicans and independents fall into this malleable middle category, with substantial shares saying the claim is “probably false,” while half of Democrats say this claim is “definitely false.” Notably, just about one in ten parents who identify or lean Republican (11%) say this claim is “definitely false.”

Belief in the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism is correlated with parents’ decisions about their children’s vaccinations. Among parents who say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the MMR vaccines have been proven to cause autism, nearly four in ten (37%) say they have delayed or skipped some childhood vaccines for their children, compared to just eight percent of parents who say this myth is “probably” or “definitely”  false.

 

 

WSJ on How RFK Could Screw Up Vaccines

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

 Wall Street Journal:

Congress established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986 for children’s vaccines because an avalanche of litigation was driving manufacturers from the market. The program allows patients who believe they’ve been harmed by vaccines to file claims with the government for compensation, which are adjudicated in special vaccine courts.

Why do vaccines receive more liability protection than medicines? For one, the population of potential plaintiffs is much larger for children’s vaccines than for any other medical product. Juries are especially sympathetic when it comes to children, so the payouts and potential liability are also much larger.

If patients don’t like the vaccine court judgment, they can still sue manufacturers in federal court. But they rarely do since the standard for proving claims is higher in federal court. But as HHS Secretary, Mr. Kennedy could take action to assist his trial-lawyer pals.

The HHS Secretary can add or remove vaccines from the compensation program, as well as specify injuries eligible for compensation. Removing vaccines from the program would open up manufacturers to mass torts based on weak evidence, including animal studies and scattered human cases that purport to link injuries to the shots.

Profit margins on vaccines are typically thin, especially for those off-patent. Companies facing enormous legal expenses and potential damages might stop making vaccines, which is what happened in the 1980s.

Making more injuries eligible for compensation despite lack of causative evidence—e.g., autism for measles—would also invite more claims. This could bankrupt the program, which is funded by an excise tax on vaccines. That means Congress would have to increase the excise tax, which is paid by consumers, or backfill the compensation fund.

RFK Confirmation Hearing

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

 Berkeley Lovelace Jr at NBC:

On Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee for the first of two confirmation hearings as President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

...

The hearing is expected to be contentious due to Kennedy’s controversial views, including his repeated false claims linking vaccines to autism — a theory debunked by decades of scientific research.

...

Kennedy’s nomination to lead HHS comes as childhood vaccination rates are falling. According to KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues, less than 93% of kindergarteners had received all of their state-required vaccines in the 2023-2024 school year, compared with 95% in the 2019-2020 school year.

Parents are more hesitant than ever to get their children vaccinated, Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Tuesday during a roundtable on vaccines hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

“The problem is not only that we’ve largely eliminated these diseases, we’ve eliminated the memory of these diseases,” Offit said, “and for that reason, parents are now more scared of the safety of vaccines, real or imagined, than the diseases they prevent.”

At the roundtable, Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee, noted the “danger” of reversing decades of progress on public health. ​​He hasn’t yet publicly said whether he would support Kennedy’s nomination.

Kennedy’s long history of anti-vaccine activism, experts worry, could mean significant changes to childhood immunization policies.

As health secretary, Kennedy would have influence over the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent group of health experts that helps the agency make recommendations for states and insurers on what vaccines to cover, including childhood vaccinations.

Senators have stated that they’ve spoken with Kennedy about vaccines, highlighting the topic’s importance. Shortly after the election, Kennedy told NBC News that he won’t “take away anybody’s vaccines.”

“Let us be clear, there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that vaccines have saved millions of lives, prevented massive human suffering and stopped the spread of infectious diseases like polio, smallpox and measles,” Sanders said.

Public health advocacy groups, including the Committee to Protect Health Care, expressed alarm about Kennedy’s views on the topic. Earlier this month, the committee posted a letter online, signed by more than 15,000 doctors, urging senators to vote against his confirmation.

Bill Gates Identifies as Autistic

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss autism history.  Some speculate that many famous innovators and scientists were on the spectrum.  Elon Musk identifies as autistic.  And now, so does Bill Gates.  Watch the first two minutes of this WSJ interview:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/bill-gates-memoir-410d7ff5?mod=itp_wsj,djemITP_h 

If I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. During my childhood, the fact that some people’s brains process information differently from others wasn’t widely understood. (The term “neurodivergent” wouldn’t be coined until the 1990s.) My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues and could be rude and inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.

What I do know is that my parents afforded me the precise blend of support and pressure I needed: They gave me room to grow emotionally, and they created opportunities for me to develop my social skills. Instead of allowing me to turn inward, they pushed me out into the world—to the baseball team, the Cub Scouts and other families’ dinner tables. And they gave me constant exposure to adults, immersing me in the language and ideas of their friends and colleagues, which fed my curiosity about the world beyond school.

Even with their influence, my social side would be slow to develop, as would my awareness of the impact I can have on other people. But that has come with age, with experience, with children, and I’m better for it. I wish it had come sooner, even if I wouldn’t trade the brain I was given for anything.

Trump Policy on FAA Employment

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in campaign politics.   In the 2016 campaign, a number of posts discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues more generally.   As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities.   He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

Sean Michael Newhouse at Government Executive:

Amid a rash of actions to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government, President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a memo that scrutinizes workers with disabilities at the Federal Aviation Administration.

The directive “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation” said, based on the FAA website, that former President Joe Biden’s administration sought to recruit and hire “individuals with serious infirmities that could impact the execution of their essential life-saving duties.”

The memo directs the FAA “to immediately return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring” and rescind DEI initiatives in hiring. Trump also is requiring the agency to review the performance and performance standards of all employees in “critical safety positions” and replace any who fail to show the necessary proficiency with a “high-capability individual.”

“The Biden FAA specifically recruited and hired individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric issues and complete paralysis over other individuals who sought to work for the FAA,” an accompanying White House fact sheet said.

...
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires federal agencies to implement affirmative action plans and policies for individuals with disabilities

Alex Kasprak at Snopes:

The cited FAA text is real, but the implication that the policy is new, or that it stems from efforts that began under U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Biden, was demonstrably false. It has been included on the FAA's website since at least as early as February 2013. It was present during the entirety of the Trump administration, and it remains present at the time of this reporting.

EEOC lists targeted disabilities, including "developmental disabilities, for example, cerebral palsy or autism spectrum disorder;

 

 

Detox Treatments for Autism Are Bogus

 Autism parents are highly vulnerable to pitches for quack "cures."

In The Politics of Autism, I write:

The conventional wisdom is that any kind of treatment is likely to be less effective as the child gets older, so parents of autistic children usually believe that they are working against the clock. They will not be satisfied with the ambiguities surrounding ABA, nor will they want to wait for some future research finding that might slightly increase its effectiveness. They want results now. Because there are no scientifically-validated drugs for the core symptoms of autism, they look outside the boundaries of mainstream medicine and FDA approval. Studies have found that anywhere from 28 to 54 percent of autistic children receive “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), and these numbers probably understate CAM usage.

From CBS:

Misinformation about "autism detox treatments," which claim to remove toxins and heavy metals from the bloodstream, is circulating online. These products, often made from zeolite, are unapproved by the FDA and can pose serious health risks. Dr. Alycia Halladay of the Autism Science Foundation discusses the dangers and myths surrounding these treatments.

 

Civil Rights Report

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

From: 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection A First Look:Students’ Access to EducationalOpportunities in U.S. Public SchoolsU.S. Department of EducationOffice for Civil RightsJanuary 2025

•  Students with disabilities served under IDEA represented 14% of K-12 student enrollment, but 28% of students mechanically restrained, 68% of students secluded, and 76% of students physically restrained.
• Preschool children with disabilities served under IDEA represented 23% of preschool enrollment, but 41% of preschool children who received one or more out-of-school suspensions and 74% of preschool children who were expelled.
• Students with disabilities represented 17% of K-12 student enrollment, but 27% of students who received one or more in-school suspensions, 29% of those who received one or more outof-school suspensions, and 24% of those who received expulsions
• Students with disabilities served under IDEA represented 14% of total K-12 student enrollment, but 25% of students referred to law enforcement and 25% of students subjected to schoolrelated arrests

Protect Our Care v. Medicaid Cuts

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and Medicaid services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

From Protect Our Care:

This week, Protect Our Care is launching a multi-million dollar “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign — one of its largest single advocacy campaigns since the defeat of the Affordable Care Act repeal attempt in 2017 — to block the Republican-led plan to slash Medicaid funding to pay for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are openly plotting TRILLIONS of dollars in cuts to Medicaid in order to fund their outrageous tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. As a result, millions – including working folks, children with disabilities, expectant mothers, and seniors in nursing homes – could lose critical health care coverage.

“After an election where Republicans claimed to care about working people and the cost of living, nothing could be more outrageous than ripping away health care from millions of seniors, children, moms, and workers to pay for another round of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “The American people didn’t vote in November to have their grandparents kicked out of nursing homes or health care ripped away from kids with disabilities or expectant moms in order to give Elon Musk another tax cut. We know firsthand from the campaign to defeat ACA repeal 8 years ago, and every health care fight since, that health care is a top-of-mind issue for Americans – and they want lawmakers to do more to ensure affordable access to coverage, not less. Our ‘Hands off Medicaid’ campaign will make that abundantly clear and demand that Medicaid cuts are off the table – for good.”

Project Our Care’s “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign will feature every possible tactic to block any effort to slash this vital health care program:

• Paid advertising, including:Traditional cable and network television nationally, in Washington, D.C., and in targeted states and congressional districts
• Streaming services like YouTube and ROKU across the country
• Direct mail
• Rural and other targeted radio advertising
• Digital advertising across platforms targeting the Medicaid population in areas around nursing homes and rural hospitals
• Out-of-home advertising including billboards, mobile billboards, bus stop wraps, and wheat pasting

Advocacy and earned media activities, including: 

• Coalition organizing nationally and in key states and districts
• Op-eds and Letters to the Editor placed by experts, elected officials, doctors, nurses, advocates for seniors, children, moms, and other people who rely on Medicaid and their family members
• Grassroots and grasstops lobbying and meetings with members and staff
• In-person and virtual events in key states, districts, and Washington, D.C.
• Research, fact sheets, and reports on the impacts of Medicaid cuts on people, disease mitigation, rural and community-based hospitals, nursing homes, local and state budgets, and more

Outgoing FDA Commissioner on Autism and Vaccines

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Some of the spreaders of misinformation have credentials.

And some of the credentialed spreaders now hold office.

Trump has nominated RFK Jr. to head HHS, of which FDA is a part.

At LAT, Karen Kaplan reports on comments by Dr. Robert Califf, the outgoing FDA Commissioner. He addressed whether the government should investigate the notion that vaccines cause autism.

Anyone that investigates this will find that the risks and benefits are already delineated. There are dozens of studies that show no relationship between vaccination and autism. It wouldn’t be where I would spend my time, but if he wanted to do it, I think he’ll find that things are already well-documented.

That doesn’t mean that post-market surveillance couldn’t be better. It’s not a great way to have things that every time a question needs to be answered for public health, you need to get permission from every state and territory.

But I don’t think people are going to find any surprises. It’s all out there. For there to be any kind of conspiracy, it would take a whole lot of people outside of government deciding to work together. I’ve lived in America my whole life. It’s hard to get anybody to work together on things.

Elizabeth Warren Writes to RFK

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Ahead of RFK Jr.'s confirmation hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote him a letter:

Vaccines are among the most important public health innovations of the last century. They have saved 154 million lives, including 146 million children, 101 million of whom were infants, over the past 50 years.5 As a result, “equitable universal access to immunization remains crucial to sustain health gains and continue to save future lives from preventable infectious mortality.”6 But your blatant disavowal of vaccine safety would wipe away this progress and put American lives in danger if you are confirmed as HHS Secretary.

Your lengthy record of advocating against vaccinations and your willful disregard for the scientific process is alarming.7 Dubbed “the ringleader of the misinformation campaign” who “turbocharged” anti-vaccine rhetoric during the Covid-19 pandemic, you have spread false hysteria that vaccines cause autism.8 Following the release of the FDA-approved coronavirus vaccine—which saved more than 3 million American lives during the Covid-19 pandemic9—you and your organization, Children's Health Defense, falsely claimed that the Pfizer vaccine that was being administered to Americans was not actually the licensed version—a baseless conspiracy that provoked unnecessary fear and hysteria across the country.10 You also accused Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor at the time, of orchestrating a “historic coup d’etat against Western democracy” for his work to combat coronavirus, including vaccination.11 In your book, you pushed unproven and unsafe treatments for the coronavirus.12 In your 2021 film, “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid,” you “used the real history of medical racism in the US to peddle conspiracy theories that coronavirus vaccines were an effort to harm Black communities.” 13 As Covid-19 ravaged the country and world, you attended rallies across Europe that decried Covid-19 restrictions and spread misinformation.14

Your dangerous views on vaccines have had tragic real-life impacts. In 2019, you traveled to Samoa, spouting dangerous anti-vaccination rhetoric.15 Your statements had a destructive impact on this Polynesian island: four months later, measles began to spread rapidly around the tiny country due to a low vaccination rate, partially thanks to your statements encouraging families and children not to get vaccinated only months earlier.16 More than 5,700 people were infected and 83 died because of your contributions to vaccine skepticism in Samoa.17 At the time, you shrugged off the epidemic as “mild”—this massive disregard for human lives is indicative of the irresponsible public health official that you would be, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS.18 Your past actions provide a very clear indication that you are not capable of upholding immunization programs or representing the United States on the global health stage. Indeed, Samoa’s public health minister, after the havoc you brought to that country, warned that, if confirmed, you “will be directly responsible for killing thousands of children around the world by allowing preventable infectious diseases to run rampant.”19

Your rhetoric indicates that, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS, you would abuse your power and use your role as a platform for spreading misinformation. Indeed, during your bid for president, you said you would use the power of the attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals and force them to publish studies that had been retracted due to their scientific unviability, such as the retracted study that says ivermectin, a parasite drug, is an effective treatment for coronavirus.20

Health officials and public health experts worry that, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS, you would sow doubt and confusion about vaccines that conservative states could weaponize to “dismantle and annihilate” public health guardrails for vaccines.21 For example, a regional health board in Idaho banned health department clinics that served six counties in the state from offering coronavirus because it heard testimony from physicians that spread misinformation about the vaccine safety.22 There are also concerns that you could slow vaccine production by delaying inspection of vaccine production facilities or requiring additional data and reviews on vaccine safety.23 Given that the FDA approves vaccines while the CDC provides recommendations on who receives them, I am deeply concerned that you could influence the vaccine approval and recommendation process by putting vaccine skeptics on advisory committees and make life-saving vaccines less accessible to American families.24

5 The Lancet, “Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization,” Andrew Shattock, PhD, et. al, May 25, 2024, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00850-X/fulltext  

6 Id.

7 AP, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views,” Michelle Smith, November 14, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/robert-f-kennedy-vaccines-trump-rfkjr-7f8dcb25de76a5a70710d22bbc63f6fa; BBC,“Fact-checking RFK Jr's views on health policy,” November 15, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo.

8 AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e; BBC, “Fact-checking RFK Jr's views on health policy,” November 15, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo; Inside Higher Ed, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Appointment Would ‘Put Americans at Risk,’” Ryan Quinn and Kathryn Palmer, November 15, 2024, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2024/11/15/what-robert-f-kennedy-jr-hassaid-about-nih.

9 The Commonwealth Fund, “Lessons from COVID-19 Can Help the U.S. Prepare for the Next Pandemic” Meagan C. Fitzpatrick, July 5, 2023, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/lessons-covid-19-can-help-us-prepare-nextpandemic.

10 Skeptical Raptor, “Vaccine licensing primer – correcting anti-vaccine misinformation,” Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, September 25, 2021, https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-licensing-primer-correctinganti-vaccine-misinformation/; AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

11 Id.; Alabama Reflector, “Fauci defends his work on COVID-19, says he has an ‘open mind’ on its origins,” Jennifer Shutt, June 4, 2024, https://alabamareflector.com/2024/06/04/fauci-defends-his-work-on-covid-19-says-he-has-anopen-mind-on-its-origins/. 

12 AP, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

13 NBC News, “RFK Jr. is courting Black voters, a group he once targeted with vaccine disinformation, ” Alex Tabet and Brandy Zadrozny, February 20, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-black-votersvaccine-disinformation-rcna139459.

14 AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

15 The Washington Post, “Global health experts sound alarm over RFK Jr., citing Samoa outbreak,” Sammy Westfall and Lena H. Sun, November 15, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-global-healthsamoa-kennedy/.

16 Id.

17 Id.

18 Id.

19 Id.

20 NBC News, “RFK Jr. comes ‘home’ to his anti-vaccine group, commits to ‘a break’ for U.S. infectious disease research,” Brandy Zadrozny, November 3, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rfk-jr-comes-homeanti-vaccine-group-commits-break-us-infectious-disea-rcna123551. 

21 The Washington Post, “How much influence could RFK Jr. have over vaccines in Trump’s government?,” Dan Diamond, Lauren Weber, Lena H. Sun, and Rachel Roubein, November 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/11/08/rfk-jr-vaccines-fda-trump-health-policy/.

22 Id.

23 Id. 

24 Id.