Past Pandemics: The 2019 Measles Outbreak and the Kennedy Family Discord
From January 1 to December 31, 2019, 1,282 individual cases of measles were confirmed in 31 states. Of these cases, 128 were hospitalized and 61 reported having complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis. This was the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1992. More than 73% of the cases were linked to recent outbreaks in New York. The majority of cases were among people who were not vaccinated against measles. One of the surprising aspects of this outbreak was the position taken by Robert Kennedy Jr., son of the late former Attorney-General and former New York Senator and Presidential candidate. What was surprising about Kennedy's viewpoint was that he was advocating against vaccination.
Kennedy serves as the chairman of Children's Health Defense (formerly the World Mercury Project), an advocacy group alleging that a large proportion of American children are suffering from conditions as diverse as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, food allergies, cancer and autoimmune diseases, all allegedly caused by exposure to a variety of chemicals. The Children's Health Defense has been campaigning against vaccination, fluoridation of drinking water, acetaminophen, aluminum, and wireless communications. This group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti-vaccine Facebook advertising in late 2018 and early 2019.
Kennedy has claimed that the media and governments are engaged in a conspiracy to deny that vaccines cause autism. In June 2005, Kennedy authored an article in Rolling Stone and Salon called "Deadly Immunity", alleging a government conspiracy to conceal a connection between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The article was said to have contained five factual errors, and Salon later issued corrections. Six years later, on January 16, 2011, Salon retracted the article completely.[156] According to Salon, the retraction was made because of accumulating evidence of alleged errors and scientific fraud underlying the vaccine-autism claim. However Rolling Stone stands by Kennedy's story.
In 2014 Kennedy published a book called Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak. The book purports to present evidence supporting the harm caused by mercury in vaccies. In April 2015, Kennedy participated in a Speakers' Forum to promote the film Trace Amounts, which promotes the link between autism and mercury in vaccinations. At a film screening, Kennedy described the autism epidemic as a "holocaust".
On January 10, 2017, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that Kennedy and President-elect Donald Trump met to discuss a position in the Trump administration. Kennedy accepted an offer made by Trump to become the chairman of the Vaccine Safety Task Force, but the appointment was never made. A spokesperson for Trump's transition said that no final decision had been made.
Kennedy is not alone in his assertions. On February 15, 2017, Kennedy and actor Robert De Niro gave a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in which they accused the press of acting as propagandists for the $35 billion vaccination industry and refusing to allow debates on vaccination science.
Kennedy's position is not shared by other members of his family. On May 8, 2019, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy and Maeve Kennedy McKean wrote an open letter stating that while their relative has championed many admirable causes, he "has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines". In the article they state:
"Americans have every right to be alarmed about the outbreak of measles in pockets of our country with unusually high rates of unvaccinated citizens, especially children. Right now, officials in 22 states are grappling with a resurgence of the disease, which was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. With over 700 cases already reported and indications that more outbreaks will occur, 2019 will likely see the most recorded cases of measles in decades... This problem isn’t only an American one. The World Health Organization reports a 300 percent increase in the numbers of measles cases around the world this year compared with the first three months of 2018. More than 110,000 people are now dying from measles every year. The WHO, the health arm of the United Nations, has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. Most cases of preventable diseases occur among unvaccinated children, because parents have chosen not to vaccinate, have delayed vaccination, have difficulty accessing vaccines, or the children were too young to receive the vaccines.
"These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
"We love Bobby. He is one of the great champions of the environment. His work to clean up the Hudson River and his tireless advocacy against multinational organizations who have polluted our waterways and endangered families has positively affected the lives of countless Americans. We stand behind him in his ongoing fight to protect our environment. However, on vaccines he is wrong. And his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they've been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. We don’t need measles outbreaks to remind us of the value of vaccination."
The article went on to point out how the public health benefits of vaccines far outweigh any potential side effects and how immunizations prevent some 2 million to 3 million deaths a year. It went on to state: "No matter what you might have read on social media, there is no scientific basis to allegations that vaccines against HPV pose a serious health threat. And numerous studies from many countries by many researchers have concluded that there is no link between autism and vaccines."
The article offered support for scientists and public health professionals at organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. It added: "Their tireless efforts guide the development, testing and distribution of safe and effective vaccines against 16 diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, influenza and HPV. The necessity and safety of vaccines are backed up by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association and scores of others."
Finally, the article went on to note how President John F. Kennedy had supported vaccination. It read:
"And we are proud of the history of our family as advocates of public health and promoters of immunization campaigns to bring life-saving vaccines to the poorest and most remote corners of America and the world, where children are the least likely to receive their full course of vaccinations. On this issue, Bobby is an outlier in the Kennedy family. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy urged the 80 million Americans, including almost 5 million children, who had not been vaccinated for polio to receive the Salk vaccine, which he called 'this miraculous drug.' In the same year, he signed an executive order creating the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has spent billions of dollars over the past decades in support of vaccine campaigns in developing countries."
It was President John F. Kennedy who had signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in 1962. When doing so, Kennedy said in his message to Congress that “There is no longer any reason why American children should suffer from polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus. I am asking the American people to join in a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out these four diseases.”
Despite the condemnation of his views by his family, Robert Kennedy Jr. continues his anti-vaccination advocacy. In June 4, 2019, during a visit to Samoa, Kennedy appeared in an Instagram photo with Australian-Samoan anti-vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein. He is also listed as executive producer of Vaxxed II: The People's Truth, the 2019 sequel to Andrew Wakefield's anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed.
Kennedy serves as the chairman of Children's Health Defense (formerly the World Mercury Project), an advocacy group alleging that a large proportion of American children are suffering from conditions as diverse as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, food allergies, cancer and autoimmune diseases, all allegedly caused by exposure to a variety of chemicals. The Children's Health Defense has been campaigning against vaccination, fluoridation of drinking water, acetaminophen, aluminum, and wireless communications. This group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti-vaccine Facebook advertising in late 2018 and early 2019.
Kennedy has claimed that the media and governments are engaged in a conspiracy to deny that vaccines cause autism. In June 2005, Kennedy authored an article in Rolling Stone and Salon called "Deadly Immunity", alleging a government conspiracy to conceal a connection between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The article was said to have contained five factual errors, and Salon later issued corrections. Six years later, on January 16, 2011, Salon retracted the article completely.[156] According to Salon, the retraction was made because of accumulating evidence of alleged errors and scientific fraud underlying the vaccine-autism claim. However Rolling Stone stands by Kennedy's story.
In 2014 Kennedy published a book called Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak. The book purports to present evidence supporting the harm caused by mercury in vaccies. In April 2015, Kennedy participated in a Speakers' Forum to promote the film Trace Amounts, which promotes the link between autism and mercury in vaccinations. At a film screening, Kennedy described the autism epidemic as a "holocaust".
On January 10, 2017, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that Kennedy and President-elect Donald Trump met to discuss a position in the Trump administration. Kennedy accepted an offer made by Trump to become the chairman of the Vaccine Safety Task Force, but the appointment was never made. A spokesperson for Trump's transition said that no final decision had been made.
Kennedy is not alone in his assertions. On February 15, 2017, Kennedy and actor Robert De Niro gave a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in which they accused the press of acting as propagandists for the $35 billion vaccination industry and refusing to allow debates on vaccination science.
Kennedy's position is not shared by other members of his family. On May 8, 2019, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy and Maeve Kennedy McKean wrote an open letter stating that while their relative has championed many admirable causes, he "has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines". In the article they state:
"Americans have every right to be alarmed about the outbreak of measles in pockets of our country with unusually high rates of unvaccinated citizens, especially children. Right now, officials in 22 states are grappling with a resurgence of the disease, which was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. With over 700 cases already reported and indications that more outbreaks will occur, 2019 will likely see the most recorded cases of measles in decades... This problem isn’t only an American one. The World Health Organization reports a 300 percent increase in the numbers of measles cases around the world this year compared with the first three months of 2018. More than 110,000 people are now dying from measles every year. The WHO, the health arm of the United Nations, has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. Most cases of preventable diseases occur among unvaccinated children, because parents have chosen not to vaccinate, have delayed vaccination, have difficulty accessing vaccines, or the children were too young to receive the vaccines.
"These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
"We love Bobby. He is one of the great champions of the environment. His work to clean up the Hudson River and his tireless advocacy against multinational organizations who have polluted our waterways and endangered families has positively affected the lives of countless Americans. We stand behind him in his ongoing fight to protect our environment. However, on vaccines he is wrong. And his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they've been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. We don’t need measles outbreaks to remind us of the value of vaccination."
The article went on to point out how the public health benefits of vaccines far outweigh any potential side effects and how immunizations prevent some 2 million to 3 million deaths a year. It went on to state: "No matter what you might have read on social media, there is no scientific basis to allegations that vaccines against HPV pose a serious health threat. And numerous studies from many countries by many researchers have concluded that there is no link between autism and vaccines."
The article offered support for scientists and public health professionals at organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. It added: "Their tireless efforts guide the development, testing and distribution of safe and effective vaccines against 16 diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, influenza and HPV. The necessity and safety of vaccines are backed up by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association and scores of others."
Finally, the article went on to note how President John F. Kennedy had supported vaccination. It read:
"And we are proud of the history of our family as advocates of public health and promoters of immunization campaigns to bring life-saving vaccines to the poorest and most remote corners of America and the world, where children are the least likely to receive their full course of vaccinations. On this issue, Bobby is an outlier in the Kennedy family. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy urged the 80 million Americans, including almost 5 million children, who had not been vaccinated for polio to receive the Salk vaccine, which he called 'this miraculous drug.' In the same year, he signed an executive order creating the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has spent billions of dollars over the past decades in support of vaccine campaigns in developing countries."
It was President John F. Kennedy who had signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in 1962. When doing so, Kennedy said in his message to Congress that “There is no longer any reason why American children should suffer from polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus. I am asking the American people to join in a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out these four diseases.”
Despite the condemnation of his views by his family, Robert Kennedy Jr. continues his anti-vaccination advocacy. In June 4, 2019, during a visit to Samoa, Kennedy appeared in an Instagram photo with Australian-Samoan anti-vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein. He is also listed as executive producer of Vaxxed II: The People's Truth, the 2019 sequel to Andrew Wakefield's anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed.