The Anti-Vaccine Propaganda of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

[mia]

Or how an environmental lawyer led a crusade against vaccines and spread lies to marginalized communities

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., does not want you to think of him as an anti-vaxxer. I have yet to meet an anti-vaxxer—someone who spreads misinformation about all vaccines being harmful—who is comfortable with the label. Kennedy is not just anti-vaccine; by many recent accounts, he is one of the princes of the anti-vaccination movement, if not its king. The website Media Bias/Fact Check calls Kennedy’s corporation, Children’s Health Defense, “a strong conspiracy and quackery level advocacy group.” An academic paper published in January 2020 reported that Children’s Health Defense was one of two buyers accounting for 54% of anti-vaccine advertising content on Facebook. Kennedy himself is part of the Disinformation Dozen, a gaggle of influencers generating two-thirds of anti-vaccination content on Facebook and Twitter, according to a recent assessment. Instagram banned him from their platform earlier this year, although his corporation’s account remains active.

As Kennedy releases a new “documentary” that uses medical failures toward Black people to sow distrust in the COVID-19 vaccines, I asked myself: how did one of John F. Kennedy’s nephews rise to infamy as one of the loudest voices of the modern anti-vaccination movement?

...Over the years, Kennedy’s misguided idée fixe has snowballed and gained impressive momentum. He has propagated numerous falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been a mainstay at the AutismOne conference, which attracts fake experts convinced that vaccines cause autism. In his last appearance as keynote speaker, he incited attendees to evangelize for the anti-vaccination movement, concluding that he would see them “on the barricades.” Kennedy was asked to chair a “vaccine safety task force” for the Trump administration in 2017. (The task force would end up never materializing.) He also served as executive producer for the anti-vaccination “documentary” Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth. Now, his own corporation has released an anti-vaccine movie, one which is directed toward people of colour....

As the end credits roll, we hear a song called “Save the Children” by Gil Scott-Heron. I couldn’t help but think of QAnon’s call-to-arms, which was trumpeted by wellness influencers on Instagram. Children were being sacrificed on the altar of Satanic Deep State pedophiles, they said. In Kennedy’s world, these same children need to be defended from the ritualistic abuses of pharmaceutical companies. “We’ve got to do something, yeah, to save the children,” the man sings over the scrolling text. But who will save the children’s parents from this harmful propaganda?

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health-pseudoscience/anti-vaccine-propaganda-robert-f-kennedy-jr

[abqtommy]

1. Lock him up and Lock. Them. All. Up.

[Zeitghost]

10. Why?

For his controversial speech? SMH...

[dalton99a]

2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an asshole and a disgrace.

[SunSeeker]

3. How did he become an anti-vaxxer? He comes from a progressive family.

[dsc]

4. Anti Vax sentiment used to be an equal opportunity conspiracy theory

with a small number of the fringes of both the left and the right. It has now become one sided with a fairly decent part of the right believing in this non sense. Sadly some of the left wing fools are still fools.

[brooklynite]

5. Anti-vax is not "right wing".....

....it's "anti-establishment". The right-wingers don't like Government mandates. The left-wingers don't like "Big Pharma".

[mzmolly]

7. Exactly.

I've had two rounds of Moderna. I've been called anti-vaccine because I question a thing or two.

[SunSeeker]

17. Most anti-vaxxers are right wing now, especially with regard to the covid vaccine.

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/17/republican-men-are-most-likely-to-be-covid-19-anti-vaxxers-not-women/

[MurrayDelph]

12. There's a bunch of them in that family

I believe it's a cousin, Joe, who decided that since he had a drug problem, no one should be allowed to have drugs.

The effect of the drug paranoia has caused a backlash to the point that post-surgery prescriptions are only good for a two-day recovery. Instead of 30 Vicodin, which would not only get one through recovery but have some left for emergencies, we get 10, which means driving back the 50+ miles to get another paper script, since they can't prescribe that over the phone.

[Dorian Gray]

29. Progressives are not immune from anti-vaxx discinfo.

As a matter of fact, I would have said that a certain segment of the progressive movement led it about ten years ago. They've dissolved into a fuzzy one topic movement that seems more aligned with Q and right-wing nuttery now, though.

It was a fascinating devolution... and they've been evangelized into THIS.

[mzmolly]

6. Vaccines have never harmed anyone and no one makes

a dime off producing them.

Got it!

[Martin68]

9. Gee, Molly, that's a straw man if I ever saw one. And anti-vexers are all scientifically literate

and open minded.

[mzmolly]

11. All who are called anti-vaccine

are not scientifically illiterate, however.

It's okay to admit that vaccines are imperfect and that pharma has a financial interest in their promotion.

[Martin68]

13. And not all people who support vaccines claim that vaccines have "never harmed anyone" or that

pharmaceutical companies are not profit-based businesses.

[SunSeeker]

19. I don't know ANYONE who supports vaccines who claims vaccines have never harmed anyone.

Do you?

Vaccine supporters know there is a tiny possibility of a bad reaction with every vaccine. They also understand that the risk of that reaction is far outweighed by the risk/harm caused by the disaease that vaccine prevents.

To suggest otherwise is to suggest that vaccine supporters ignore science and data, and is a roundabout way of saying that the science supporting vaccines is "fake news." That is wrong, harmful and not progressive at all.

[mzmolly]

21. When any possible harm is

considered, the 'anti-vaccine' label is trotted out. But go on...

[SunSeeker]

23. That's not true. If it were, the CDC & FDA would be called anti-vaccine.

It's one thing to "consider" possible harm of a vaccine. We all do that. It's a whole other thing to make shit up and oppose vaccines in general based on conspiracy theories.

[Downtown Hound]

27. But we're not talking about anyone who raises any question about "any possible harm", now, are we?

We're talking about RFK jr., who is one of the most prominent anti-vaxxers on the planet. One who has trumpeted numerous bunk studies, junk science, and ridiculous conspiracy garbage on the topic and has probably done more to advance the anti-vaccine cause than any other individual on the planet. The damage he's done has been particularly egregious because of who his father was. Many good, decent, rational progressives have been taken in by his garbage science because, "RFK Jr. wouldn't steer us wrong, now, would he? Look at who his father was."

Except he did and he has.

[Dorian Gray]

31. Dishonest

incitement of fears by people like RFKJr are, indeed, anti-vaxx quackery.

[SunSeeker]

20. Everyone who is in fact anti-vaccine is scientifically illiterate.

Having "a few questions" about a particular vaccine is not being anti-vaccine. Robert Kennedy OPPOSES vaccines broadly, based on essentially conspiracy theories. That is not "having a few questions." That is anti-science chem-trail nuttery. That is what being anti-vaccine is.

[Downtown Hound]

26. Anyone who is anti-vaccine is scientifically illliterate

Sorry, but that's a fact. Admitting that in rare cases vaccines can be harmful is not the same thing as being anti-vaccine. Being anti-vaccine is taking these extremely rare cases and turning them into a crusade against vaccines and blaming them for all kinds of evils and unrelated health issues with no real hard evidence to support it. Anti-vaxxers also, at the same time, ignore the enormous amount of good that vaccines have done for the human race and spread irresponsible fear and paranoia about them to the point that we as a species now suffer from diseases that could easily be eradicated were it not for the irrational resistance and fear-mongering of anti-vaxxers. That is what anti-vaxxers have done.

[SunSeeker]

15. What is your point? That vaccines are harmful? WTF?

[mzmolly]

16. Well, there is

an in-between.

[SunSeeker]

18. OFFS. What is "in-between"? You think folks who favor vaccination think there is 0% risk?

Virtually everyone who gets a vaccine understands there is a tiny risk of a bad reaction, but that risk is far outweighed by the risk of the disease itself. Vaccines are not approved if they don't meet that standard.

To suggest that people who support vaccination think nobody has ever been harmed by a vaccine is a ridiculous insult, and is utterly false.

[TexasBushwhacker]

22. Absolutely

I had a student whose brother had been harmed by the pertussis (Whooping cough) vaccine. It was a known, but tiny, risk and a fund had been set up for children that had been affected.

[SunSeeker]

24. Absolutely what ?

Not sure what you are trying to say.

[TexasBushwhacker]

28. Just because I'm pro vaccines

I still acknowledge there is a some risk of side effects, potentially serious ones.

[SunSeeker]

34. Of course. I don't know anyone who doesn't acknowledge that. nt

[Dorian Gray]

32. What's the in between position?

That if you have had bad reactions to vaccines before, talk to your doctor about whether this one is right for you? If you are prone to blood clots, maybe sit this one out? If you have allergies to ingredients, sit this one out? if you have health issues that may be negatively affected by the vaccine, sit this one out? I mean, that's pretty much the going narrative.

If it's:
"Hey, young people, you don't actually NEED this vaccine because you can most likely survive COVID" then no... that's not middle ground. That's perpetuating the harm being done to the world's population.

[Dorian Gray]

30. Who da fuq claims those things?

Vaccines are an imperfect tool that have saved millions of lives historically. With covid, the risk assessment is HIGH. While J&J vaccine may cause blood clots in .000005 percent of the population, COVID itself causes it in 16% of the people who get it. So, yeah, I'd take the vaccine, thank you very much!

(And since I actually have thrombophilia, I was able to further risk assess and get the Moderna vaccine in lieu of the J&J.)

And Big Pharma deserves to make some money on this vaccine, but first let's get the world to 80 percent vaccinated/herd immunity and open the formula so everyone can produce it.

[Martin68]

8. Should disqualify him from running for office or holding any position of responsibility.

[SunSeeker]

14. Yep. nt

[Yavin4]

25. Anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers have the same fundamental flaw in their arguments.

If some in the global scientific community actually had evidence supporting their positions, it would be published. There would be a rigorous debate. The fact that there is no debate must mean that there's a massive, global, and coordinated cover-up to conceal the truth from the public.

When your argument defaults to coordinated global conspiracy theories, then it's flawed.

[Buckeyeblue]

33. That's right. And that's where it falls apart

RFK jr has had a tough life (not monetarily) and has pretty much pickled himself. But he still craves attention. And this is how he gets it.