Column: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to your health — and our democracy

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading anti-vaxxer and son of the slain U.S. senator, is running for president. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister, brother and niece on his anti-vaccination crusade Trump promptly denied that, but acknowledged that he was “exploring the possibility” of such a commission and “look forward to continuing the discussion about all aspects of autism with many groups and individuals.” Kennedy has never backed off from pushing the vaccine-autism link, which can be traced back to a British study that was eventually retracted because of charges that the data were fabricated. While the epidemic was still in full cry that November, Kennedy wrote to the Samoan prime minister denying that the outbreak could be blamed on “the so-called ‘anti-vaccine’ movement,” and pointed his finger instead at “a defective vaccine” that failed to target a “mutated” virus and allowed it to spread to children. At an appearance in Sacramento in 2015, while the California Legislature was debating a measure to narrow the ability of parents to avoid immunizing their children, he called the impact of vaccines on children a “holocaust.” Kennedy claims not to be “anti-vaccine,” but says he is merely “a vaccine safety advocate.” That’s a well-worn dodge of the anti-vaxxer movement. In 2019, his sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, brother Joseph Kennedy II and Kathleen’s daughter Maeve Kennedy McKean, who died in 2020, upbraided Kennedy in Politico for having “helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media” and being “complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.” As they pointed out, President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. were leaders in improving access to vaccines and better healthcare to Americans and others around the world.