RFK Jr., Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, is one of the most self-serving, unqualified, and dangerous people to ever be nominated to a cabinet position. His brand of right-wing extremism aims to eliminate certain lifesaving vaccines and further restrict reproductive health care.
Even members of RFK Jr.’s own family have come out against him; most recently, his cousin Caroline Kennedy, who called him a “predator” and claimed he’s victimized family members and sick children.
Get the MAGA Files on RFK Jr.:
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RFK Jr. doesn’t care about public health.
- RFK Jr. falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism, cancer, allergies, and autoimmune diseases.
- RFK Jr. lied that vaccines are not safety-tested and that the Spanish flu originated from a vaccine research program.
- RFK Jr. and his anti-vaccine nonprofit specifically targeted Black communities to push their anti-COVID vaccine agenda.
- RFK Jr. used his position to amplify anti-vaccine voices in Samoa, exacerbating a measles outbreak that killed more than 80 people, mostly small children.
- RFK Jr.’s conspiracies haven’t improved public health, but his anti-vaccine work made him $2.2 million from 2017 to 2023 as the leader of Children’s Health Defense, a “leading spreader of anti-vaccine falsehoods,” according to the New York Times.
- RFK Jr. has promised that as HHS Secretary he will continue to collect fees from referring clients to law firms suing the vaccine manufacturers he will be in charge of regulating.
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RFK Jr. has far-right, extreme views on public health.
- RFK Jr. supported a 15-week national abortion ban, the same ban favored by anti-abortion extremists like former Vice President Mike Pence, and claimed that “states have a right to protect a child” when it is “viable” without defining what he means.
- RFK Jr. ran for president in California on the ticket of the American Independent Party, a political party that supported a total national abortion ban.
- RFK Jr. has also said 5G and wireless internet cause brain damage, pesticides make people transgender, and that poppers and a “gay lifestyle” actually caused AIDS.
- RFK Jr. has often invoked the Columbine massacre to promote his conspiracy theory that antidepressants – not the proliferation of guns – are the true cause of mass shootings.
- RFK Jr. said he took a far-right stance on firearms because of “government overreach” and campaigned as a “staunch advocate for Second Amendment gun rights protections.”
Published: Jan 29, 2025 | Last Modified: Feb 3, 2025