Is RFK Jr. Anti-Vaccine? Everything the HHS Secretary Nominee Has Said

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated as the next Department of Health and Human Services secretary.
President-elect Donald Trump announced his pick on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday, saying he was “thrilled” to announce that the anti-vaccine activist would lead the incoming administration’s health agency.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said, adding that Kennedy would “restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year before switching to an independent bid that he abandoned in support of Trump’s campaign, is one of the most vocal vaccine critics in the nation. Although Trump once called the activist the “dumbest member” of the dynastic family, Kennedy fell into favor after endorsing Trump.
The president-elect had previously suggested Kennedy would have “a big role” in the federal public health bureaucracy, but his transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick shut down rumors the position would be with HHS.
Despite opposing virtually all vaccines, Kennedy has insisted that he is not anti-vax and claimed that he’s never told the public to avoid getting vaccinated.
Kennedy, who is on leave as the chair of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, has long repeated the debunked claim that childhood vaccines cause autism and when asked if there were any safe and effective vaccines on the market, Kennedy told podcaster Lex Fridman, there are “no” vaccines in that category.
Fridman pushed Kennedy on the polio vaccine—which is widely considered one of the other greatest medical advances of the 20th century and has been estimated to save more than 1.5 million lives and prevented paralysis in more than 20 million children—but Kennedy suggested the vaccine killed more people than it saved.
Kennedy also came under criticism for advocating against COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic as well as statements he made comparing lockdowns to Nazi Germany and claiming that the virus was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
However, Kennedy has said he doesn’t plan to restrict access to the vaccines he opposes.
Asked last week if he would take any vaccines off the market, Kennedy told MSNBC, “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines. I’ve never been anti-vaccine.”
“If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away,” he said, adding that “people ought to have choice and ought to be informed by the best information, so I’m going to make sure that scientific safety studies and efficacies are out there and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and member of the Trump White House coronavirus task force, revealed over the summer that he spoke with Kennedy about vaccines.
While appearing on an episode of The Axe Files with David Axelrod podcast, Fauci recalled that during a presentation, “the first slide I remember [Kennedy] showed is that ‘it has been shown that vaccinations are responsible for the following diseases’ and he gave every disease in the world.”
At the end of the meeting, “All we could say was ‘Bobby, I’m sorry, but we don’t really agree with you.'”
Fauci added that although he didn’t know what was happening in Kennedy’s head, “it’s not good.”
He said he told Kennedy, “Bobby, I believe you care about children, and you care that you don’t want to hurt them, but you got to realize from a scientific standpoint, what you’re saying does make no sense.”
Daniel Havlichek, the former chief of Michigan State University’s division of infectious diseases, previously told Newsweek, “I am concerned that [Kennedy] lacks even marginal scientific and public health training. This would lead to public health decisions based on his hunch about what to do. This is not good policy.”
He said that vaccines have improved global health for hundreds of years but that despite best efforts, many viruses and diseases for which immunization is available remain “only a plane ride away.”
“We need to remain vigilant against these pathogens, and vaccination is a highly effective way to protect ourselves and our children,” Havlichek said. “Eliminating this protection without a well-vetted plan is naive.”