- Kennedy told the Children’s Health Defense conference that the administration is supportive of vaccine skeptics and confirms he has advanced their priorities since he took office at HHS.
- Seven measles-associated deaths have been recorded in the US over the past two years, more than the combined total from the prior three decades, including four deaths in Pennsylvania this year, all in unvaccinated individuals.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed the Children’s Health Defense conference in Washington on Thursday, the organization he chaired for nearly a decade before joining the Trump administration. It was his first appearance at the group’s conference since taking office, and he used the nearly ninety-minute speech to reassure anti-vaccine activists that the administration remains aligned with their cause.
A pledge of continued support
Kennedy told the crowd, “Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” and said the administration had accomplished things in nineteen months that would have seemed unthinkable two years earlier. He acknowledged that some changes he wanted had to wait, saying he would have moved faster on day one if not for legal constraints, and that the administration was proceeding step by step.
He pointed to concrete administration actions: efforts to reduce the recommended childhood vaccination schedule, a reorganization of a key vaccine advisory board (since halted by a judge), and an executive order calling for spacing out doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, a move that runs counter to guidance from major medical organizations.
The measles outbreak
Kennedy addressed the outbreak only once in his remarks, arguing that public attention to rare illnesses like measles deaths should be matched by equal concern for children he described as injured by vaccines. He also disputed the safety-testing record of childhood vaccines, saying “we have no idea of the risks for these products” and arguing that his agency lacks the data to properly weigh vaccine risks and benefits. The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that new vaccines go through lab research, animal testing, and multiple phases of clinical trials, and that many childhood vaccines were originally tested in randomized trials with placebo or comparison groups.
Kennedy also cited a 2010 federal review known as the Lazarus report, which found that fewer than one percent of vaccine adverse events are reported through the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and said HHS was working to fix that system. He referenced a separate 2012 National Academies review of 158 vaccine-adverse-event pairs, which found convincing evidence for fourteen relationships, evidence favoring rejection for five, and inconclusive evidence for the remainder, calling that an indictment of his own agency and pledging further research.
Reaction from the stage and beyond
Other speakers at the conference included Andrew Wakefield, the researcher whose retracted and discredited study helped launch the modern anti-vaccine movement and whose medical license was revoked over fabricated findings, despite decades of subsequent research finding no link between vaccines and autism. Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland thanked Kennedy for what she framed as his recognition of real, consequential issues around childhood vaccination.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, whose state has borne the brunt of the outbreak’s death toll, criticized the appearance, writing that Kennedy “chose to spend his time today addressing the premier vaccine-denial conference in America” rather than encouraging vaccination. Shaughnessy Naughton of 314 Action, which backs scientists running for office, argued that the speech showed a lack of seriousness at HHS and that the secretary should step aside given the outbreak’s death toll.
According to the Guardian, recent polling found that about a quarter of Americans now express doubts about the MMR vaccine, even as a majority disapprove of the administration’s handling of the outbreak.
