Read Protect Our Care’s Report on RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories Here
Follow Protect Our Care’s Live Fact Checking of the Hearing Here
In his opening statement at his Senate HELP Committee confirmation hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doubled down on his lies from yesterday regarding his anti-vaccine record. For years, Kennedy has fueled disinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccinations that have had deadly consequences. He has been a leading anti-vaccine voice for decades, spreading false information about vaccines and autism that led to a full-blown measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people, primarily infants and children. But we have the receipts:
- “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” [Lex Fridman Podcast #388, ‘Robert F. Kennedy Jr: CIA, Power, Corruption, War, Freedom, and Meaning’, 7/6/23, VIDEO]
- “Our job is to resist and to talk about it to everybody…I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated.’ And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won’t do it…” [The Way Forward with Alec Zeck, ‘HFfH: The State of Health Freedom with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’, 9/3/21, AUDIO]
- “I do believe that autism comes from vaccines.” [Fox News, ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’, 7/10/23, VIDEO]
- “They’re trying to get at your baby. And force him to take their vaccines. And give him a lifetime dependency.” [Speech, Texans for Vaccine Choice Rally in Austin, Texas, 5/4/19]
- “They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” [Speech, ‘Trace Amounts’ Screening in Sacramento, California, 4/7/15]
- “The COVID shots are a crime against humanity.” [Robert F. Kennedy Jr., X, 12/12/22]
- “The digitalized economy? We get rid of cash and coins. We give you a chip. We put all your money in your chip. If you refuse a vaccine, we turn off the chip and you starve!” [RFK Jr., Instagram via Forbes, 8/15/20]