Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been anti-vaxx for many years. When COVID started he went full in on the "5G Bill Gates microchips!!!" stuff and the craziest of the craziest of COVID-related nonsense.
He's into a wide variety of nonsense, though he's certainly best-known for anti vax nonsense (he was into it since before it was cool; on the whole MMR conspiracy theory train and so on).
This is just a limited selection (not even covering all the false claims of Kennedy, through the anti-vax organization he runs, identified in the cited source articles), because there have been so many lies, about so many vaccines (including using lies about one vaccine to discourage use of a completely different vaccine.)
His organization misrepresented the findings of a Lancet study to claim that vaccine-derived COVID-19 immunity “becomes negative”. [0]
His organization has circulated false claims about tetanus vaccines being part of a conspiracy to render women infertile. [1]
His organization spread debunked claims about MMR vaccines and autism in the black community as part of an effort to discourage COVID-19 vaccine use in the black community. [2]
His organization misrepresented a government study to spread the false claims that the flu vaccine made COVID-19 infection more likely, as propaganda against the flu vaccine. [3]
This is an unbelievably generous take on RFK2's vaccine views. He has said, as recently as a few days ago on live TV, that vaccine research created HIV and other major diseases. He is not in favor of more long-term research, as you suggest. He is against all vaccine research.
I believe RFK said he did NOT get vaccinated for COVID (he said that in front of congress).
I think if he truly wants to make a compelling case, he has to stop associating himself with truly bad ideas, for example, claiming that the CIA killed his dad and uncle (this was in a fox news article about his time on the Rogan show), that HIV doesn't cause AIDS (instead saying that it was caused by vaccine research: "Anybody who reads The River will come away pretty much convinced that HIV also came from a vaccine program, there’s plenty of evidence on that as well.".
It's really hard to parse out what he truly believes. It seems like he acftively skirts the truth and then backtracks when somebody calls him out.
Sounds very similar to Robert Kennedy Jr.'s intense political anti-vax campaign. He's widely criticized in the media for it (same as Arthur Conan Doyle) but believes he's doing the right thing and will be proved right in the end, just like Doyle.
Doyle:
>"It is time which will prove our cause," he wrote. "Time will also prove to those who have misrepresented us that they are playing with fire. They are not judging the Unseen. The Unseen is judging them."
Kennedy:
> “One thing that keeps me buoyant about this, because otherwise, I’d be depressed,” he said. “I know I’m gonna win this one. I have the ability to push this over the finish line. I know I do. The truth will prevail.”
RFK is doing it because he's thought vaccines were bad for literally his entire adult life, here's an article from 2011 where Salon had to retract a thing they let him publish in 2005 on the subject:
"a controversy surrounding an invitation to prominent vaccine scientist Peter Hotez to debate anti-vax charlatan and spoiler presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr"
Quite the unbiased opening... a close relative of a beloved President, son of a former Attorney General and also candidate for President, is dismissed as a 'spoiler'?
And what would his political stances matter in a question of science?
He’s making false claims about the vaccines’ safety and speaking at antivax events. He doesn’t need to believe what he’s saying - plenty of people find it profitable not to - but that’s irrelevant because his public statements have the same impact whether or not he believes them.
>Children’s Health Defense, headed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, received $10,969;
I am willing to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt as I believe Jeff Bezos isn't anti-vax. But isn't Robert F Kennedy Jr a famous anti-vaxxer quack? Some basic amount of research should be done.
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