Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might have preferred to spend his early months as secretary of Health and Human Services on issues for which he has broad support, such as his battle against ultraprocessed food. But the country’s devastating eruption of measles has proved to be a make-or-break event for him, and his constant equivocation on this issue has been disastrous.
Any hopes that Mr. Kennedy’s noxious views on vaccines would moderate with responsibility were always wishful thinking. It may be impossible to change his course, but that doesn’t mean those in positions of leadership shouldn’t try.
As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has failed to help control the measles outbreak in and around Texas, which has ballooned to more than 500 cases and now includes the deaths of two children. This lamentable outcome is unsurprising, given that he is a longtime critic of the measles shot and in 2021 dismissed measles outbreaks as “fabricated to create fear.” For these reasons, many doctors, including me, were opposed to his nomination as leader of our health care system.
Mr. Kennedy’s best chance at stopping the deadly measles outbreak and preventing other ones is by improving vaccination rates. Yet doing so would alienate him from the anti-vaccine community. He recently attended the funeral of one of the children who died, an 8-year-old girl in Texas, and reportedly questioned the safety of vaccines to her family members. But in his public comments about the visit, he wrote that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.” That tepid statement made headlines and drew praise from Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican and a physician who reluctantly provided a key vote for Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation.
Mr. Kennedy’s supporters, however, saw the public comment as a betrayal. “What on earth is going on with Bobby Kennedy,” wrote Liz Wheeler, a conservative media personality, adding that the Make America Healthy Again community “fought for Bobby Kennedy because he was unafraid to name the dangers of the MMR vaccine.”
Del Bigtree, one of Mr. Kennedy’s collaborators in the anti-vaccine movement, struggled to explain his apparent turnaround. “I have worked with Bobby for many years and I can confidently say that he has a heart that is incapable of compromise,” Mr. Bigtree wrote on X. “I also recognize that he is at a poker table with the slyest serpents in the world and the stakes are nothing less than the lives of our children and the future of our species.”
Make no mistake about Mr. Kennedy’s positions: Days later, it was reported that Health and Human Services plans to change web pages to read, “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one” and “People should also be informed about the potential adverse events associated with vaccines.”
In truth, Mr. Kennedy has done little to publicly counter his long-held view that immunization is harmful and unnecessary, choosing instead to promote unproven therapies like cod liver oil and to praise vaccine-skeptical doctors. He has tried to simultaneously appease his establishment antagonists and his anti-establishment backers. During a recent CBS News interview, he said that people should get the measles shot but claimed that vaccines weren’t adequately tested for safety. He also recently made the outlandish promise that the government would begin providing answers about what causes autism — which he described as “running rampant” — as early as September, which seems likely to result in some blame being placed on vaccines.
While Mr. Kennedy’s belief in medical conspiracy theories is probably sincere, he has also shown a desire for legitimacy. (His willingness to eschew his liberal past and endorse Donald Trump exemplifies this transactional side.) To accomplish his ambitious MAHA agenda of overhauling the food supply and regulatory system, Mr. Kennedy will need the support of Congress members, medical and public health professionals and industry leaders. None of these people should work with him until he backs off the anti-vaccine talk.
One of the most urgent priorities should be persuading Mr. Kennedy to not use his government position to falsely claim that vaccines cause autism. During his confirmation hearings, he assured senators that he would be willing to abandon his belief in the connection if he was shown enough data. Of course, such data has long been available. But his ambitions surely extend beyond vaccines. Perhaps he can be prodded to compromise on this issue. Public health supporters, including conservatives like Mr. Cassidy, must try.
In the meantime, those who support vaccines should begin to prepare for the more likely scenario, in which Mr. Kennedy’s project links vaccines to autism, probably using questionable methods. Experts cannot simply share declarations that vaccines are safe and effective in the current distrustful climate. Instead, independent scientists should begin performing fresh analyses to share with the public when his research is released and be prepared to address frequent anti-vaccine talking points.
The one silver lining of Mr. Kennedy’s ascension to the leader of the U.S. health system is that it gives vaccine supporters a larger platform to publicly call out his misinformation. The stakes are too high to allow it to continue unchecked.
Benjamin Mazer is a physician and a writer covering medicine and public health.
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