Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Still an antivaccine crank after all these years [View all]

[SidDithers]

Only really long time readers will remember this, but back in the day (June 2005, to be exact), I discovered Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his antivaccine nuttery when he published his epically bad piece of antivaccine conspiracy mongering, Deadly Immunity, both in Salon.com ( link here: https://web.archive.org/web/20050618015256/http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/index_np.html ) and Rolling Stone (the latter of which doubled down on it a few years later by reposting it). My deconstruction of the logical fallacies, errors of science and fact, and just general silliness of Kennedy’s article was one of the first times I was ever really “noticed” in the blogosphere. Since then, every so often, or so it seems, I’m drawn back to RFK, Jr., just because he can’t seem to stop the conspiracy mongering over the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal in vaccines and his obsession with its link to autism. It’s a link that’s long been disproven by clinical trials, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to use various cases to “prove” a link between vaccines and autism, insinuate that the CDC is covering up a thimerosal-autism link, out-crank another vaccine-autism crank Sharyl Attkisson, use the case of Poul Thorsen to distract from inconvenient science, and link his environmental activism to his antivaccine activism, thus tarnishing the environmentalist movement as long as the Kennedy name.

When last we visited him, RFK Jr. had been threatening to…write a book! And write a book he had done, a book entitled Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak: Mercury Toxicity in Vaccines and the Political, Regulatory, and Media Failures That Continue to Threaten Public Health. With the book’s imminent release in early August, media attention has been less than stellar, but the attention of the antivaccine crankosphere has been a bit more intense. Indeed, I had considered letting this cup pass because, well, I’m sick and tired of RFK, Jr., and I’m not sure that there’s much that I want to say about him right now. Still, as I say, there are some topics that inevitably drag me in, even as I resist and procrastinate for a couple of days, and RFK Jr.’s antivaccine quackery appears to be such a topic. Also, there has been a bit of mainstream media attention in the form of an article by Keith Kloor in The Washington Post a few days ago entitled Robert Kennedy Jr.’s belief in autism-vaccine connection, and its political peril. There are a few juicy tidbits that I learned in the article, although the article seems a bit more sympathetic to RFK, Jr. than I would like. The article also says little about RFK Jr.’s partner in this endeavor, Dr. Mark Hyman, who has been an intermittent topic on this blog and has been known to http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/08/dr-mark-hyman-mangles-autism-science-on/

The good things I learned is that, increasingly, RFK, Jr. is being viewed by mainstream politicians and media as the crank that he is. (And, make no mistake, on the subject of thimerosal in vaccines, RFK, Jr. is a crank par excellence.) Remember Senator Barbara Mikulski, for example? She co-sponsored a resolution that declared one week during last October to be Naturopathic Medicine Week, or, as I called it, Quackery Week. She also co-chaired a meeting with the creator of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), where Harkin complained that NCCAM had “fallen short” because it hadn’t “validated” enough CAM, completely misunderstanding how science works and supported an amendment to the Affordable Care Act to have it cover CAM practitioners. It goes on and on; she appeared at the anniversary of the integrative medicine center at the University of Maryland and has even appeared on Dr. Oz’s radio show to promote “integrative medicine.” She is among the most woo-friendly legislators out there.

And even she didn’t take RFK, Jr. seriously:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski listened impassively as Robert Kennedy Jr. made his case. He had to talk over the din in the marbled hallway just outside the Senate chambers, where he was huddled with Mikulski, two of her aides and three allies of his who had come to Washington for this April meeting.

Kennedy, a longtime environmental activist and an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, had thought Mikulski would be receptive to an issue that has consumed him for a decade, even as friends and associates have told him repeatedly that it’s a lost cause. But she grew visibly impatient the longer he talked.

Snip

According to Kloor, Mikulski’s reaction was less than enthusiastic. Basically, she just referred RFK, Jr. to Sen. Bernie Sanders, because he “cares about brain health” and oversees a related subcommittee. Sanders’ reaction was at best noncommittal, perhaps because RFK, Jr. basically made threats if he doesn’t get what he want. His threat? To publish his book! However, his threat was highly disingenuous, coupled as it was with the usual claim from antivaccinationists that they’re really and truly “not anti-vaccine”:

The normally voluble, white-haired senator was convivial, then, as Kennedy got going, fell silent. “We don’t want to publish this book,” Kennedy told him, holding up a copy of his manuscript. “We are very pro-vaccine.” He motioned to Hyman across the table. “Vaccines save lives. We don’t want to alarm the public by showing them the science. We have a publisher lined up, ready to publish it. But we said no.”

Much, much more at the link.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/07/22/robert-f-kennedy-jr-still-an-antivaccine-crank-after-all-these-years/

David Gorski - Orac at Scienceblogs - has been writing about pseudoscience for more than a decade, but in the last few years has concentrated almost exclusively on medical woo. From his wiki page:

David H. Gorski is an American surgical oncologist, Professor of surgery at Wayne State University,[1] and a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, specializing in breast cancer surgery.[2] He is a critic of alternative medicine and the anti-vaccination movement. He is the author of a blog, Respectful Insolence,[3] and is the managing editor of the website, Science-Based Medicine.[4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gorski

Orac knows his shit, and has Kennedy absolutely pegged for the anti-vax asshat that he is.

Sid