RFK Jr. Would Be the Worst Possible President Kennedy

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We grew up inspired by the historic words from John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” After JFK’s assassination in 1963, our hopes turned to his brother Robert F. Kennedy, who echoed George Bernard Shaw’s trenchant observation: “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”

The Kennedy legacy was one of public service and civic engagement, always aspiring to the common good.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of a US Attorney General and nephew of a president, has turned the Kennedy legacy upside down. Beginning in 2003, RFK Jr. abandoned his promising career as an environmental advocate to embrace the libertarian agenda of anti-vaccine and anti-science activism—a fascinating and dangerous U-turn from self-sacrifice to self-serving.

Anti-Vaccine Zealot RFK Jr. Is Running for President as a Democrat

The triggering element, literally, was mercury. In 1998, the British doctor, Andrew Wakefield published an article in The Lancet claiming that thimerosal, a mercury preservative contained in the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine, caused autism. The Lancet later retracted the article, its editor calling its statements “utterly false,” while the British Medical Journal called Wakefield’s article “fraudulent.” British authorities stripped Wakefield of his medical license. However, distraught parents of autistic children still embrace Wakefield, who now makes a fortune on the anti-vaxx propaganda circuit—and so too does RFK Jr.

The irony here runs deep. RFK Jr. continues to hype a massive conspiracy regarding thimerosal, even though the CDC actually removed it from most childhood vaccines, including MMR, in 2001. He has also stubbornly ignored an Institute of Medicine immunization safety review, along with nine CDC-backed studies, showing no association between thimerosal and autism. It’s sadly not hard these days to sell the idea that CDC and the rest of the public health community is engaged in all manner of deceit.

This week RFK Jr., with the blessing of no less than agent provocateur Steve Bannon filed papers with the Federal Election Commission stating his intent to oppose President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nomination, and apparently plans to announce his formal candidacy in Boston on April 19.

Four years ago, when two of RFK Jr’s siblings (Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and former Rep. Joseph P, Kennedy II) joined niece and health care worker Maeve Kennedy McKean, to publish a heartfelt plea for him to abandon his unfounded attacks on public health, many naively thought he might dig deep to discover his roots. Instead, RFK Jr. has doubled down, building the war chest of his anti-vax propaganda organization, Children’s Health Defense, to eight figures, publishing a nasty screed against Dr Anthony Fauci, and rubbing elbows with the likes of Roger Stone at “Reawaken America” events.

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Facebook and Instagram removed the Children’s Health Defense account, naming the organization one of the “Disinformation Dozen,” which refers to the top 12 COVID-19 misinformation super-spreaders.

Standing at the Lincoln Memorial at an anti-vaxx rally last year, RFK Jr. compared COVID-19 vaccines mandates to Nazi Germany. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, condemned those remarks tweeting, “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive. The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”

Earlier this year, RFK Jr. and other anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists joined forces in a bizarre lawsuit accusing the Washington Post, BBC, Associated Press, and Reuters of violating 19th-century antitrust laws by refusing to credit bogus COVID-19 conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine misinformation. Here is a man who would use his good name, the political system, and the nation’s courts to undermine vaccines, probably science’s greatest achievement ever.

This is a head spinning moment for the Kennedy legacy. It is also a dangerous moment for the nation.

Consider these worrying statistics. According to the CDC, coverage with two doses of MMR vaccine declined during the pandemic, amounting to 250,000 children who aren’t protected against deadly diseases. Vaccinations for polio, varicella, and for diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis also declined.

It was unsurprising to see wild polio found in a religious community in New York City, the first time in a generation. As for COVID-19, researchers estimate that there have been 318,000 vaccine-preventable deaths due to failure to get even the primary series. COVID-19 vaccine misinformation is strongly associated with declines in vaccination intent.

Even a known COVID-denier, Donald Trump couldn’t get behind RFK Jr., first appointing him to head a vaccine safety panel, but then backing away. And now Kennedy wants to use the platform of a run for president to amplify his anti-science agenda. RFK Jr. would never have received the public attention and the ability to raise so much money to fuel disinformation campaigns had he not had the Kennedy name. It’s obvious that his Democratic presidential candidacy will gain no traction, but it has already gained a startling amount of ink, and social media is saturated with his destructive messages about vaccines.

RFK Jr.’s obsession with casting doubt on the simply overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines save lives is the antithesis of the common good. And it is the antithesis of the public spirit that Jack and Bobby Kennedy aspired to for America.

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