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A longtime anti-vaxxer, Kennedy has promoted conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic.


Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a public hearing about vaccine-related bills.

Carl D. Walsh/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images



Kennedy has long espoused anti-vaccine views, suggesting a flu vaccine may have caused his voice disorder (he has spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder).

In 2005, he wrote an article published in Salon claiming that the mercury-based thimerosal compound in vaccines causes autism. After issuing multiple corrections, Salon eventually retracted the piece. Kennedy later founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, originally named the World Mercury Project, in 2011.

Kennedy rose to prominence during the pandemic for his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.

At a press event held at a New York City restaurant in July 2023, Kennedy told the crowd that COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” to attack certain groups of people.

“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” he said. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential and impact,” he continued.

The Anti-Defamation League called Kennedy’s remarks “deeply offensive,” saying they fed into the “sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years.”

At Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, he said some of his earlier comments had not been accurately represented.

“I’m not anti-vaccine,” Kennedy said during his opening statement.

He said he would not limit access to vaccines if he were to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I support the measles vaccine,” he said. “I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing, as HHS secretary, to make it difficult or discourage people from taking it.”

When asked about his statements about COVID-19, Kennedy said he did not say it “deliberately targeted” some people, and that he had been referencing a published study in his remarks.



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