Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed at a congressional hearing Thursday that he has never urged the public to avoid vaccination. In reality, Kennedy is one of the country’s most prominent anti-vaccine activists. He has for years used false and misleading claims to undermine public confidence in vaccines that are indeed safe. Kennedy has long pushed the debunked claim that there is a link between childhood vaccinations and autism. He also falsely claimed there is convincing evidence that the 1918 influenza pandemic and HIV both originated with vaccine research, and repeatedly touted misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. In 2021, for example, he baselessly claimed that there had been a wave of “suspicious” deaths among seniors who had taken these vaccines. It would be more than fair to argue that Kennedy’s years of false claims about vaccines has been tantamount to Kennedy urging Americans to avoid vaccinations. But such an argument is not even necessary; Kennedy has explicitly said that he is not anti-vax, but merely a proponent of vaccine safety. He said in 2021 that he had personally urged strangers to refrain from vaccinating their babies. He encouraged others to do the same. Kennedy said on another podcast in 2021: “If you’re one of 10 people that goes up to a guy, a man or a woman, who’s carrying a baby, and says, ‘Don’t vaccinate that baby,’ when they hear that from 10 people, it’ll make an impression on ‘em, you know. And we all kept our mouth shut. Don’t keep your mouth shut anymore. Confront everybody on it.” Kennedy has made similar but slightly softer comments in other forums, including on a “Health Freedom for Humanity” podcast. He was a witness at a Thursday hearing held by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the supposed “weaponization” of the federal government. The hearing is expected to last until the end of the month, with a vote on whether to hold a second hearing on the issue on July 20, 2023. It’s unclear whether the House will vote on a second vote on the matter or whether it will delay it until after the July 20th vote, or if it will hold a third vote on July 25, 2024, or after July 26, 2025. The vote is likely to be held in the second week of July, and the results will be released on July 28, 2026. It will be the first time the House of Representatives has held a hearing on this issue in more than a decade. The last time was in 2010, when the House voted on a bill that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a review of the CDC’s vaccine schedule for children. The bill was defeated by a vote by a voice vote; the next time, the vote will be on July 27, 2027. The next day, the House is scheduled to vote again on the question of whether or not the CDC should conduct a study of the vaccine schedule.
RFK Jr. claimed he’s never told people to avoid vaccination. He did — less than two years ago.
