On July 31, 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke to a crowd of approximately 1,500 people at an event in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, attended largely by members of the Amish and Mennonite communities, a population that five years later would be the epicenter of a massive measles outbreak. He misinformed them that “because vaccines are not a drug, they’re the only medication that has not been tested for safety.”
A few months later, on October 19, 2021, Children’s Health Defense published The Measles Book: Thirty-Five Secrets the Government and the Media Aren’t Telling You about Measles and the Measles Vaccine. In his foreword, RFK Jr. wrote: “Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear that in turn forces government officials to ‘do something.’ They then inflict unnecessary and risky vaccines on millions of children for the sole purpose of fattening industry profits.”
Four years later, on February 13, 2025, RFK Jr. was sworn in as our Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)—the nation’s #1 public health official.
One day later, on February 14, 2025, Lubbock County, Texas, reported its first case of measles in an unvaccinated school-aged child. This was the beginning of what was to become the largest measles epidemic in the United States in more than 30 years. Would RFK Jr. set aside his anti-vaccine past and rise to the challenge?
On February 26, 2025, two weeks after RFK Jr. had been sworn in as Secretary of HHS, a 6-year-old unvaccinated girl died of measles pneumonia at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas. This was the first child death from measles in the United States in more than 20 years. Dr. Lara Johnson, Covenant’s chief medical officer, said that many children were being admitted for supplemental oxygen and respiratory support—not, as RFK Jr. had suggested, just for quarantine purposes. At that point, West Texas had reported 124 confirmed cases of measles and 18 hospitalizations.
A few days later, on March 2, 2025, RFK Jr. wrote a letter to Fox News, stating that parents should consult their healthcare providers about the MMR vaccine, but that the decision was a personal one. In other words, parents could reasonably choose not to vaccinate their children against measles during a massive measles epidemic. RFK Jr. also wrote that good nutrition remained the best defense against infection.
Ten days later, on March 12, 2025, RFK Jr. appeared with Sean Hannity on Fox News to promote beef tallow over seed oils for frying. During the interview, RFK Jr. said that the measles vaccine “caused blindness and deafness,” “killed people every year,” and “caused the same symptoms as measles.” For these dangerously irresponsible statements alone, RFK Jr. should have been fired as Secretary of HHS. But he wasn’t.
Three weeks later, on April 3, 2025, an 8-year-old unvaccinated girl became the second child to die from measles.
On April 8, 2025, five days after the second child had died from measles, and under increasing pressure from the White House to support the MMR vaccine, RFK Jr. told CBS News that “the federal government’s position and my position is that people should get the measles vaccine. But the government should not be mandating those.” Again, RFK Jr. refused to say the “S” word, that the measles vaccine was safe.
One year later, during congressional testimony on April 16, 2026, RFK Jr. finally said it. When Rep. Madeleine Dean asked whether the MMR vaccine was “safe and effective,” Kennedy answered, “Yes,” before immediately qualifying his answer: “It’s safe for most people.” He also agreed that getting the vaccine was safer than getting measles.
On March 2, 2026, about one year after the first child had died from measles, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health and acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a public service announcement in support of the measles vaccine. Bhattacharya said, “The MMR vaccine remains the most reliable and effective way to prevent [measles]…Two doses are 97 percent effective at providing lifelong protection against measles and its complications.” Still, nothing about the vaccine’s safety.
On August 10, 2026, after thousands of Americans had been infected with measles, President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office with RFK Jr. standing proudly at his side, said that the combination MMR vaccine was “explosive,” “quite lethal,” and should be divided into three separate vaccines.
Two weeks later, on August 23, 2026, Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared on the CBS News program Face the Nation. Dr. Oz would be the first prominent health official to be asked about whether President Trump’s claims about the safety of the MMR vaccine were correct. Although Oz eventually answered “No” to the question of whether the MMR vaccine was “lethal,” he initially dodged the question by pivoting to parental choice, state eligibility, and the parents’ right to question vaccines. Oz understood that neither Trump nor RFK Jr. wanted a full-throated support of MMR’s safety. Vaccine safety had become the public health equivalent of election denialism.
A couple weeks later, on September 16, 2026, Nicole Saphier, President Trump’s newest nominee for U.S. Surgeon General, appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee where she was asked whether she believed that the MMR vaccine was “quite lethal.” Saphier said that she did not believe the MMR vaccine was lethal and called it “our greatest tool for combating measles.” But she never said that it was safe. Saphier also praised President Trump for understanding that many parents were concerned that children were getting too many vaccines.
The next day, on September 17, 2026, RFK Jr. spoke at the annual meeting of Children’s Health Defense, an organization he formerly led and that paid him as much as roughly $500,000 annually for his work. “We care about every child who dies from measles,” said RFK Jr. “They get headlines. Shouldn’t we…care about children dying or suffering or being injured by vaccines.” After thousands of people had suffered from measles under his watch and hundreds had been hospitalized, RFK Jr. again returned to his strongly held concerns about vaccine injuries.
How much longer must we wait for someone in RFK Jr.’s administration to calm the waters on vaccine safety? How much longer before they stop fearing for their jobs and start standing up for children?
Lightly edited for clarity and accuracy
