RFK Jr.’s COVID-19 Deceptions
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s battle against vaccines — and against the institutions that promote them — goes back to at least the mid-2000s, as we explain in the first article of this series. But the arrival of COVID-19 gave the environmental attorney fresh grounds to intensify his attacks and a timely platform to gain new followers and revenue.
Kennedy’s organization, Children’s Health Defense, has published thousands of stories about COVID-19, many including misleading claims, some of which we’ve written about. During the pandemic, CHD increased its reach and doubled its funds, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. The extra money allowed the group to open new branches in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia; translate stories into Spanish, French, Italian and German; launch an internet TV channel; and start a movie studio. (Kennedy took a leave of absence starting on April 1 for his presidential campaign.)
In 2021, researchers identified Kennedy as one of the “Disinformation Dozen,” or the top 12 most prolific spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation online. That same year, Instagram took down Kennedy’s account for spreading false information, although it was reinstated in June because of his campaign. In 2022, Meta removed CHD’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for “repeatedly” violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies (the local chapters are still active on the platforms).
COVID-19 has given Kennedy a new base that shares a mistrust in health and governmental institutions, and he has consistently associated himself with the anti-vaccine movement. In Kennedy’s 2021 book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” he presents the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as the villain, carrying out a Machiavellian plan in partnership with pharmaceutical companies to profit from vaccines, while describing a list of prominent anti-vaccine figures to whom the book is dedicated as “heroic.”
In December 2021, Kennedy falsely called the COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” citing deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which is part of the nation’s vaccine safety monitoring systems. But as we have explained, the reports are unverified and, as the VAERS website warns, any report “to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.” Expanded reporting requirements and intense scrutiny of the widely given COVID-19 vaccines did increase reporting to VAERS, but this doesn’t mean the shots are unsafe.
More recently, during his campaign, Kennedy hosted a virtual roundtable with some top COVID-19 misinformation spreaders, including Dr. Joseph Mercola, Del Bigtree and Dr. Pierre Kory. And in the first episode of his campaign YouTube series “Running on Truth,” the only three people featured are Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Robert Malone and Kory — each of whom have pushed COVID-19 disinformation.
Time and again, Kennedy has misrepresented or distorted the science about the pandemic or the COVID-19 vaccines. Here, in the final installment of this three-part series, we review some of his claims on those topics that he’s made so far during his campaign challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
We reached out to his
