Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was once one of the country’s leading and most effective environmental lawyers. He was known as an extremely intelligent, charismatic, and politically astute individual who challenged the fossil fuel industry. Tough, determined, dedicated, and persistent in his litigation, his work was grounded in evidence-based science.
Since 2005, he has promoted conspiracy theories, falsehoods, pseudoscience, and disinformation. He is now the most prominent face of the anti-vaccine movement, leading the anti-vaccine group, the Children’s Health Defense (banned from Facebook and Instagram).
America is waist deep in the “post-truth era,” rife with anti-science, baseless beliefs, and propaganda of which I have previously written. Evidenced-based scientific views are replaced with pseudoscience or unproven or misleading assessments. Often these dangerous fabricated ideas are promulgated for personal or political advantage. To Kennedy’s credit, the Kennedy family (although rebuking his claims) and others close to him trust that he is sincere in his beliefs with the best intentions of protecting the common good.
Incredibly, a significant proportion of Americans are gullible enough to embrace outrageous falsehoods. Post-truth public discourse is increasingly driven by what people want or expediently claim to be true rather than what is verifiably true.
History teaches us that troubled, unstable, and uncertain times are fertile ground not only for disinformation but also for bigotry, intolerance, and extremism. Kennedy has made some disturbing comments in these regards. Be careful Bobby.
Is Kennedy another victim of the post-truth era or a purveyor of anti-science and conspiracy theories?
He claims that a specific type of mercury (thimerosal) contained in vaccines, virtually eliminated in 2001, is related to childhood autism even though the prevalence of autism has since increased. Even Rolling Stone retracted Kennedy’s 2005 article on the dangers of mercury-containing vaccines.
He claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates were in a profiteering conspiracy with the COVID vaccine industry. He purports that vaccine mandates and pandemic mitigation efforts were comparable to Hitler’s Holocaust. He alleges that COVID vaccines are too dangerous to receive and alternatively touts treatments with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Kennedy denies that he is anti-vaccine (once asserting being anti-unsafe vaccine) even though his comments and actions are extensively documented.
These positions have been soundly debunked as baseless or overwhelmingly determined as invalid by high-quality scientific studies. His claims are based on pseudoscience, manipulated data, or misleadingly interpreted data. Some studies have been retracted by the very publications in which they appeared.
Kennedy’s departure from evidence-based science to garbage science and unfounded conspiracy theories is difficult to understand. He selectively ignores good science and relies on dubious unscientific reports to support his positions. Perhaps Kennedy’s views and suspiciousness were shaped by his environmental work confronting unscrupulous fossil-fuel companies that provided biased “scientific” studies while industry-influenced regulatory agencies did nothing. But his extrapolation to other issues is not justified. His judgements are those of a litigator, not a scientist.
Kennedy is now a presidential candidate. His rhetoric is dangerous, especially since he’s from a renowned family which gives him enormous credibility. Kennedy was considered by then President Trump to lead a “vaccine panel” to study vaccine safety and industry integrity. Fortunately, it never happened.
Kennedy is a purveyor of fringe science that extends outrageously beyond vaccine-related issues. But I consider him mostly a victim of the post-truth era. He and a good portion of the American public distrust scientific institutions, powerful corporations, and government while being enamored by demagogues and conspiracy hucksters.
Richard D. Feldman, M.D. is an Indianapolis family physician and former Indiana State Health Commissioner who served in the administration of Governor Frank O’Bannon.
RFK about vacines…he’s not against them, he says they should be much better tested before be released to the public. Drugs are extensively tested, but vacines pale in comparison. And even drugs sometimes get into release and cause more bad than good.
I’ll tell you what happened to him. Like a lot of people (Naomi Wolfe, Russell Brand, Tulsi Gabbard to name a few), he found it more profitable to become a grifter for the rapidly-growing conspiratorial mindset, which is largely a by product of years and years of sewing distrust in institutions of our country. Largely starting with the ending of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the Right Wing Lie-O-Sphere, which RFK is sadly now catering to directly and shamelessly.
I read with disgust the article written by Richard D. Feldman, M.D. defaming Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Feldman accuses Kennedy of promoting conspiracy theories, falsehoods, pseudoscience, and disinformation about vaccines. Feldman states that Kennedy is promulgating himself for personal gain on Kennedy’s stance on vaccines that have harmed many individuals.
Robert Kenndy Jr. believes in the truth of vaccine injury. One example is his case for a young woman who was severely injured by the Gardasil vaccine manufactured by Merck, “alleging the drugmaker fraudulently concealed the risks of its Gardasil human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, depriving parents and children of their right to informed consent.”
The young 13 year old took all three of the Gardasil vaccinations and after the third shot, her side effects worsened to anxiety, body pains, brain fog, cognitive impairment, depression, frequent headaches, hives, insomnia and lightheadedness. Doctors diagnosed the 13 year old patient with the following health issues: Chronic fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Generalized anxiety, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Major depressive disorder, Mast cell activation, Postural syndrome and Ulcerative colitis. She will have these chronic diseases her entire life thanks to the lies of Merck. This is the reason for this lawsuit and there are many other young women who are now suffering from Gardasil’s injurious shot.
Kennedy has the courage to tell the truth in this “baseless beliefs, unfounded conspiracy theories, garbage science and gullible people’s outrageous falsehoods” society touted by Feldman. Kennedy’s rhetoric is dangerous to the pharmaceutical companies who lie to the American people and peoples across our planet about their fraudulent injury killing vaccines.