RFK Jr. tries (again) to distance himself from the anti-vaccine movement

On the day of his confirmation hearing to be secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat before the Senate Finance Committee flanked by anti-vaccine activists and steadfast supporters who filled the room. 

Facing mounting criticism from public health officials, doctors’ groups and Democrats (along with some skepticism from some Republicans), Kennedy attempted a delicate balancing act: defending and denying his controversial past as a prominent anti-vaccine lawyer while pledging to be a responsible steward for an agency with 80,000 employees, a $1.8 trillion budget and the nation’s health at stake. 

“I want to make sure the committee is clear about a few things. News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. Well, I am neither; I am pro-safety,” Kennedy said in his opening statement. “All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in health care.”

Those statements, along with most of what Kennedy would say over the next four hours, bore little resemblance to the years of documented stances he took, such as advising all parents with babies not to vaccinate them. That dissonance did little to blunt the excitement in the anti-vaccine movement, some of which had descended on Washington for the hearing and subsequent celebrations.

Kennedy has eschewed the anti-vaccine label in the mainstream media for years, but in ideologically friendlier spaces, he has made his position on vaccines clear. In a 2020 podcast for his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, he said that vaccines had caused food allergies in his children and that he wishes he could go back and change his decision to vaccinate them. Kennedy went on leave from Children’s Health Defense in 2023 when he ran for president, and he resigned from the group last month.

“What would I do if I could go back in time and I could avoid giving my children the vaccines that I gave them?” he asked in 2020, “I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that.”

He went on, “I wouldn’t take that risk.” 

On the podcast “Health Freedom for Humanity” in 2021, Kennedy noted that activists like him had shied away from the anti-vaccine label but were now openly advocating against vaccines. 

“Our job is to resist and to talk about it to everybody. If you’re walking down the street, and I do this now myself, which is, you know, I don’t want to do, I’m not a busybody. I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated,’” Kennedy said on the podcast. “And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won’t do it, you know. Maybe he will save that child.”

But he reversed course Wednesday, answering several questions about his record of claims with support for vaccines and the current childhood schedule.

Since he announced his presidential run, Kennedy has tried, arguably successfully, to live in two worlds. In mainstream news interviews and before congressional committees, he has said he is not anti-vaccine and promised not to “take away” vaccines as health and human services secretary. At the same time, he has relied on the support of the anti-vaccine movement behind the scenes — staffing his failed presidential campaign with anti-vaccine leaders like Del Bigtree, leader of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network, who now runs a super PAC (MAHA Alliance) and a nonprofit organization (MAHA Action) dedicated to supporting Kennedy’s confirmation. Bigtree has implied that Kennedy remains dedicated to the anti-vaccine cause, posting in November that Kennedy and MAHA were being “strategic” with their muted talk about vaccines. 

“Bobby didn’t get dragged through the mud for over a decade just so he could compromise his values once he finally got inside the castle,” Bigtree said. 

Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Kennedy’s transition team, told NBC News last month that Bigtree was not involved in the transition and that his views “do not represent Mr. Kennedy’s or President Trump’s administration.” 

Any arm’s-length denials of Bigtree have done little to stymie the enthusiasm of the anti-vaccine movement. Bigtree’s MAHA group planned a “Pack the Halls for HHS Confirmation” event at the Capitol on Wednesday morning and a party in the evening at the Hyatt Regency. 

Longtime supporters in the anti-vaccine movement, activists and self-described “autism moms” who share the disproven belief that vaccines cause the condition also rallied around Kennedy on Wednesday. 

Nicole Shanahan, who as Kennedy’s running mate funneled millions of her own money into his failed presidential run, posted a video Tuesday warning senators against voting no. “I will personally fund challengers to primary you in your next election,” she said, naming 13 senators. 

Anti-vaccine and anti-GMO activist Zen Honeycutt, who leads the group Moms Across America, posted from the hearing. She sat in the row directly behind Kennedy’s family, next to conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly and Children’s Health Defense’s recently retired executive vice president, Laura Bono.

“This is because all of YOU moms have been speaking up for decades!!!” Honeycutt posted. 

The Informed Consent Action Network and Children’s Health Defense livestreamed the hearing on their websites. Children’s Health Defense posted a video of President Mary Holland interviewing supporters outside the room before the hearing. Holland and director of programming Polly Tommey had said the hearing was an emotional and pivotal moment for their group.

“Finally there’s going to be a little bit of justice for my child,” Toomey said on Children’s Health Defense’s morning show Tuesday. 

“It’s not over till it’s over,” Holland replied. 

Senators asked Kennedy about Children’s Health Defense at several points, most memorably Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who referred to a blown-up photo of a baby onesie the anti-vaccine nonprofit group sold for $26 emblazoned with “Unvaxxed, Unafraid.” 

“I have no power over that organization,” Kennedy replied. “I’m supportive of vaccines.”

For weeks, anti-vaccine organizations have organized advocacy campaigns in support of his nomination, urging members to call their senators and planning real-world events.

Another in-person action was advertised on a website created Friday by Susan Sweetin, director of development and communications for the National Vaccine Information Center, the oldest anti-vaccine group in operation. A former reporter known for conspiracy theories about the AIDS virus blogged that Sweetin had organized the show of support at the behest of Kennedy, who replied to her text offering to bring people to the hearing with: “YES. A Tsunami.” 

Reached by text, Sweetin said Kennedy’s remarks over text were part of a “private discussion.” Miller, Kennedy’s representative on the Trump transition team, did not reply to a request for comment about the event. 

The National Vaccine Information Center’s plan, according to the website, was to line up before sunrise “so that we secure, if not all, the majority of the seats inside the hearing room,” according to the website. Supporters were instructed to wear green lanyards or gear purchased on Kennedy’s official merchandise store. (Kennedy made $100,000 from licensing fees for official MAHA merchandise last year, according to his recently filed financial disclosure report.)

Kennedy joined the anti-vaccine cause in earnest in 2005, after, he says, women started showing up at speaking events with stories about their autistic children who they said had been harmed by vaccines. He constructed a theory alleging scientists, public health officials and the pharmaceutical industry had conspired to hide the truth about vaccine injuries and published it in a 4,700-word article in Rolling Stone magazine. The article was appended with a series of corrections pointing out errors and deceptively edited transcripts in Kennedy’s piece; ultimately it was retracted.

But the conspiracy theory remained, becoming central to the organization that Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, the many books he has written on the subject and the numerous anti-vaccine lawsuits he has brought or referred to firms. Kennedy’s financial disclosure forms and nonprofit tax filings show he has profited in the millions from the anti-vaccine movement. 

The anti-vaccine movement’s momentum was slowed by a series of setbacks — scientific research consistently showed vaccines to be safe, and the main study bolstering claims that they were unsafe was retracted for false data — but it had a resurgence during the pandemic, widening its support among conservatives who saw vaccine mandates and public health initiatives as infringements on their rights. 

The Republican support was on display in the committee hearing room Wednesday. 

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican who emerged as one of the country’s most prominent pandemic-era vaccine skeptics, heaped praise on Kennedy and invoked false theories about vaccines’ leading to chronic illness and neurological conditions. 

“Coming together with Trump and focusing on an area of agreement, something that the American people desperately want, finding out the answers, ‘What has caused autism, what is causing chronic illness?’” Johnson said, “my first response was, Bobby, this is an answer to my prayers.”

If Kennedy’s distancing himself from their movement bothered his supporters, there was no evidence in the ones assembled behind him, who cheered Kennedy’s Senate allies and jeered his critics. The chair reminded the audience multiple times to remain quiet and respectful. 

While Kennedy walked back his past statements about the issue that united them and disavowed the movement he led, he did not abandon them altogether. 

“This movement, led largely by MAHA moms from every state — you can see many of them behind us today and in the hallways and in the lobbies — is one of the most transcendent and powerful movements I’ve ever seen,” Kennedy said.