Kennedy’s remarks closed out the first day of the conference. Kennedy’s salary grew to more than $500,000. In 2021, the group raised nearly $16 million, more than 4 times its revenue in 2019. A small but growing number of Americans believe that vaccines are unsafe and can cause autism, which is false, according to a new survey from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.Ĭhildren’s Health Defense cheered the increasing distrust of vaccines during the pandemic, calling drops in childhood vaccination rates Covid’s “silver lining.” The swell in attention on vaccines and Kennedy’s enthusiastic activism against them served Children’s Health Defense well. Most Americans, particularly Democrats, do not share Kennedy’s skeptical views on vaccines, but confidence in vaccines has fallen post-Covid. The super PAC supporting Kennedy’s candidacy is run by a former president of Children’s Health Defense’s New York chapter. Children’s Health Defense’s employees have been selling merchandise at Kennedy campaign events, and its current president served as a strategist, fundraiser and organizer for Kennedy’s campaign.

But evidence of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine support is abundant. “We’re gonna say we’re fixing to file some racketeering lawsuits if you don’t start telling the truth in your journals.”īefore Kennedy’s speech, an announcer told the crowd that as a nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense does not endorse political candidates. He said he would use the power of that attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals and force them to publish studies that had been retracted (he often cites the retracted studies saying ivermectin, a parasite drug, is an effective treatment for Covid). Siri is a lawyer who has done millions of dollars of work for leading anti-vaccination groups, including a recent case that opened up religious exemptions for childhood vaccines in Mississippi. In addition to his proposed moves at NIH, Kennedy said that as president, he’d appoint a like-minded attorney general, “maybe Aaron Siri,” he said. Referring to vaccines, he said to the mothers in the audience: “You have a duty to do research when you’re giving your child a medical intervention.” In the hourlong speech, Kennedy covered well-worn subjects, railing against the evils of pharmaceutical companies, warning against researchers who he said improperly frame scientific findings for profit, and expounding on conspiracy theories around Covid measures, including what he called the “totalitarian regime” that controls public health and censorship of dissenting voices. In a hypothetical 2024 general election matchup, according to a Quinnipiac University poll this week, Kennedy received 22% support against Biden (39%) and Trump (36%).Ī representative for Children’s Health Defense declined my request to attend the conference in person, citing my record of “reporting on CHD’s themes and activities.” NBC News paid $275 for a virtual ticket and watched the conference via a livestream provided to remote attendees. Warren / AP fileĬurrently running as an independent candidate, Kennedy is polling favorably among voters across the political spectrum. Kennedy, left, stands with participants at a February 2019 rally at the state Capitol in Olympia, Wash., to oppose a bill that would remove parents' ability to opt their school-age children out of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

Kennedy signed on with Children’s Health Defense in 2015 and served as its chairman and chief litigation counsel until April, when he announced he would go on leave to run for president. Kennedy’s remarks came at the end of the first day of a conference for the country’s largest anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense. We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” “I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy has suggested without evidence that researchers and pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit to neglect such chronic conditions and invest in ineffective and even harmful treatments he includes vaccines among them. He then laid out his vision for a Kennedy presidency, which would include telling the National Institutes of Health to take “a break” from studying infectious diseases, like Covid-19 and measles, and pivoting the agency to the study of chronic diseases, like diabetes and obesity.

Take a break picture