As measles cases continue to spread in West Texas, health officials in the state confirmed this weekend that an 8-year-old girl had died from the virus — the second unvaccinated child to die from measles complications this year. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended her funeral on Sunday, calling it “a heartbreaking day” in a post on X. Kennedy has a long history of spreading misinformation about the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and has spent much of the current outbreak attempting to downplay the seriousness of the situation and promoting dangerous and unproven alternative treatments. But apparently, he found the weekend’s events sobering enough to share some evidence-based information about how to avoid preventable deaths of children. “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he wrote on X.
This common-sense public-health advice did not go over well with RFK Jr.’s anti-vaxx fan base, who sounded off in the comments, calling him a “sell-out” and “a really great poster boy for Big Pharma.” Others responded with variations of “WTF” as well as genuine confusion, noting correctly that Children’s Health Defense — the aggressively anti-vaxx nonprofit RFK Jr. founded — “promotes the opposite.” “Can someone find @RobertKennedyJr and put him in as @HHSGov secretary please” wrote one user, while others speculated that their leader had been “compromised” or was being “blackmailed.” Del Bigtree, the CEO of the anti-vaxx organization Informed Consent Action Network — and a former communications director for RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign — expressed outrage that RFK Jr.’s post failed to mention the conspiracy that “the MMR is also one of the most effective ways to cause autism.” Other disillusioned followers took it upon themselves to highlight RFK Jr.’s most galling instances of hypocrisy, resurfacing footage of him recalling getting measles as a child as “a great week” and suggesting without evidence that the MMR vaccine may kill more children than measles.
Despite the number of anti-vaxxers lamenting RFK Jr.’s betrayal, this isn’t the first time he’s acknowledged the benefits of the MMR vaccine. Following widespread criticism of his lackluster measles response, he published an op-ed with Fox News Digital, writing that “vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity.” In neither case has he explicitly urged parents to vaccinate their children — he called vaccination a “personal” decision in the Fox News piece — but plenty of his fans still weren’t thrilled. (Some did appreciate that he gave airtime to vitamin A, which doctors have warned can be dangerous in large doses in addition to being ineffective at preventing measles.)
But it’s increasingly hard to deny that RFK Jr.’s public statements about vaccines have been wildly inconsistent. After spending years profiting off lies about vaccines, he attempted to reassure Americans last fall that he wouldn’t “take away anyone’s vaccines” and repeatedly claimed to be “pro-vaccine” during his confirmation hearings. Yet despite his claims to want transparency and “good science,” the FDA recently canceled a flu-vaccine planning meeting of scientific experts without giving any indication why. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. has tapped David Geier — another notorious anti-vaxxer — to lead a study reexamining the already thoroughly debunked link between vaccines and autism, which even Republican senator Bill Cassidy has suggested is a waste of time and money.
According to the New York Times, the FDA’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, recently resigned after he was told he could either quit or be fired. “This man doesn’t care about the truth,” Marks told the Times about RFK Jr. “He cares about what is making him followers.”