Longtime vaccine hater Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. appears to be walking back his own skepticism amid a significant measles outbreak spanning states including Texas, California, New Jersey, and more.
In an op-ed for Fox News — yes, the same media giant that's spent years fearmongering about vaccines — the new Health and Human Services secretary said it was "crucial" that everyone gets the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine after a school-aged child in the Longhorn State became the "first measles-related fatality in the United States in over a decade."
The allegedly brainwormed health secretary didn't mention that the deceased child wasn't vaccinated against MMR — or that last week, when asked about that child's death, he claimed that measles outbreaks are "not unusual."
"We have measles outbreaks every year," the political scion said during his first-ever meeting of cabinet secretaries. "There are two people who have died, but we are watching it."
It's unclear whether Kennedy simply misspoke when referring to an additional measles death or if he was aware of something we're not. What is clear, however, is that he's done an about-face in the days since that flippant remark — and that his own vaccine skepticism is glaringly absent from his more recent messaging about MMR.
When appearing before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearings in January, RFK Jr. attempted to distance himself from the "antivax" label by noting that all of his children were vaccinated. The new HHS secretary conveniently forgot to mention that he previously claimed to regret getting his kids vaccinated — and that he used to be chairman of Children's Health Defense, an influential anti-vaccine nonprofit that got kicked off of Instagram and Facebook in 2022 for spreading medical disinformation.
"What would I do if I could go back in time and I could avoid giving my children the vaccines that I gave them?" Kennedy said in a 2020 podcast appearance on behalf of Children's Health Defense. "I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that."
Despite paying lip service to the "crucial" nature of vaccines to stop the spread of the highly contagious measles disease, the HHS secretary let the mask slip momentarily in his op-ed.
"The decision to vaccinate," Kennedy wrote for Fox, "is a personal one."
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