Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Democrat and environmental activist

[Spider Jerusalem]

45. No, it really isn't.

His position on vaccines is wrong, stupid, and dangerous. He is misusing the public platform he has on account of his name to spread fear and falsehood. I wouldn't call him an "asshat", personally (and haven't; you can check my posting history, assuming you can work out how to use the search function; so I'd thank you to not claim I have done).

I'm not the only one who has a problem with what he's done. Rolling Stone and Salon published a piece making many of the same vaccine-related claims by RFK Jr in 2005. That piece has been retracted since:

In 2005, Salon published online an exclusive story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that offered an explosive premise: that the mercury-based thimerosal compound present in vaccines until 2001 was dangerous, and that he was “convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.”

The piece was co-published with Rolling Stone magazine — they fact-checked it and published it in print; we posted it online. In the days after running “Deadly Immunity,” we amended the story with five corrections (which can still be found logged here) that went far in undermining Kennedy’s exposé. At the time, we felt that correcting the piece — and keeping it on the site, in the spirit of transparency — was the best way to operate. But subsequent critics, including most recently, Seth Mnookin in his book “The Panic Virus,” further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value. We’ve grown to believe the best reader service is to delete the piece entirely.

“I regret we didn’t move on this more quickly, as evidence continued to emerge debunking the vaccines and autism link,” says former Salon editor in chief Joan Walsh, now editor at large. “But continued revelations of the flaws and even fraud tainting the science behind the connection make taking down the story the right thing to do.” The story’s original URL now links to our autism topics page, which we believe now offers a strong record of clear thinking and skeptical coverage we’re proud of — including the critical pursuit of others who continue to propagate the debunked, and dangerous, autism-vaccine link.

http://www.salon.com/2011/01/16/dangerous_immunity/

See also here, here, here, here and many many other places besides for an overview of the actual science and the results of many studies relating to mercury, thimerosal, vaccination, and autism (helpful hint: repeated studies have found no link whatever). For further info re the fraudulent link between vaccination and autism, see here (exposé on the research fraud behind the original study claiming a vaccine/autism link).