Anti-vaccine rhetoric and lawsuits were a lucrative enterprise for Robert F Kennedy Jr, leading up to his nomination to be secretary of health – one he is seeking to distance himself from as he enters confirmation hearings this week.
Last week, he promised to resign from his consultancies and chairmanship of Children’s Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine nonprofit, if he is confirmed. That is cold comfort to public health experts anxiously eyeing his confirmation.
“The plain truth is that vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives,” said Dr Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under Barack Obama, and now CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a public health-focused non-profit.
“When Mr Kennedy says things like autism does come from vaccines” – a false claim – “that’s very problematic”.
Frieden continued: “That was a fraudulent claim from someone who was aiming to profit from it, and false claims like that not only undermine our confidence in safe and effective vaccines they also divert attention from finding the real cause of things like autism that affect so many people.”
Kennedy, often called “Bobby” by administration officials, is the scion of a political dynasty who first worked as an environmental litigator. But he gained notoriety for boosting conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine skepticism – and taking on a job as one of the of the world’s most influential anti-vaccine activists earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
Although Kennedy told NPR recently “we’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody”, he added he believed vaccine science has “huge deficits” and he wanted people to make “informed choices” – a way skeptics undermine vaccine expertise and describe weakening immunization requirements.
Kennedy’s team did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine pay first came under a microscope during his presidential run as a Democrat. Few believed Kennedy was a serious contender for president. However, after agreeing to end his candidacy, Trump agreed to nominate Kennedy for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. HHS has a $1.8tn budget to regulate drugmakers, keep Americans safe from infectious disease outbreaks, fund the largest public biomedical and behavioral research agency in the world and provide health insurance to 136 million Americans.
Among myriad powers Kennedy would have as secretary, he could fundamentally reshape the way the US governs vaccines. An Arizona State University professor identified at least 20 actions Kennedy could take to undermine vaccine availability and use as health secretary, from spreading misinformation to delaying approvals.
His candidacy also comes at a time of high anxiety for scientists: Trump’s administration moved to pause public communications from public health agencies and cancel scientific meetings this week. Before Trump won re-election, his supporters proposed fundamentally restructuring scientific agencies in the conservative Project 2025 playbook. Hundreds of public health experts have already signed a letter urging senators to oppose his nomination.
“There are lots of things a health secretary could do that could be very problematic,” said Frieden. “Like undermining school vaccine mandates or packing the committee on [CDC’s advisory panel], or ending that whole committee, or changing the way vaccines are paid for.”
Kennedy has served as the chairman of the Children’s Health Defense since 2015, a non-profit that is one of the world’s most prolific spreaders of false and misleading vaccine claims. In 2023, Kennedy earned $325,056 while on leave from the non-profit campaigning, according to non-profit tax filings. In 2022, before he entered the race, he was paid $510,515.
A 2023 ethics disclosure, first published by Politico, shows Kennedy earned $1.5m for “referral fees” from injury law firms such as Wisner Baum and another $62,500 from law firm Morgan & Morgan.
Both Wisner Baum and Morgan & Morgan are injury law firms involved in cases against the pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck, which makes the Gardasil vaccine. Gardasil prevents certain kinds of cervical cancer caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV). The vaccine is recommended for adolescents around age 11 or 12.
Kennedy made an additional $125,000 as a consultant for Skyhorse Publishing, the controversial publisher of Kennedy’s book The Real Anthony Fauci, which makes baseless claims against the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – a figure now vilified by the right.
Fauci was once Trump’s adviser during the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci as one of his last acts in office, fearing Trump would attempt to exact revenge on the retired physician-scientist.
Kennedy, in writing, said he would divest and resign from many of these postings should he be confirmed. Notably, he also said he would not write books for which he had received advances from Skyhorse, including one on vaccines and another on “unsettled science”.
Kennedy joins the Republican administration at a time when the party has welcomed vaccine doubters as a new, hyper-engaged constituency. A growing minority of Americans now believe vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are meant to prevent – with a gulf between Republicans and Democrats.
The proportion of Americans who hold such beliefs grew from 11% in 2019 to 20% in 2024, with 31% of Republicans and Republican-leaners believing vaccines are dangerous. That is compared with 5% of Democrats, according to recent polling from Gallup. The figure for Republicans is up from 6% in 2001.
“It is a fantasy to think we can lower vaccination rates and herd immunity in the US and not suffer recurrence” of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio and measles, Gregory Poland, co-director of the Atria Academy of Science & Medicine, told NPR in December. “One in 3,000 kids who gets measles is going to die. There’s no treatment for it. They are going to die.”
In just one example of this group’s zeal, bilious online commenters pounced on the announcement of a $500bn investment in AI when Oracle chief technology executive Larry Ellison described the potential to personalized cancer vaccines – one calling the idea a “biological weapon”.
State lawmakers and political appointees have responded with equal fervor – from introducing bills to weaken school immunization mandates to exempting state health workers from influenza vaccine requirements.
Other Republicans have looked to courts to advance their anti-vaccine rhetoric. In one example, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a federal lawsuit against Pfizer last summer for allegedly overstating the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine. The pharmaceutical company swatted the suit down by December, but Paxton promised to appeal.
“The Paxton lawsuit against Pfizer, I’ve said this before, it’s performative politics,” said Terry Burke, the executive director of the Immunization Project in Houston, Texas.
Texas has become a hotbed of anti-vaccine activism since former Dr Andrew Wakefield moved there. The former physician’s license was revoked in 2010 following revelations of fraud in a now-retracted study that falsely linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Notably, Wakefield also received financing for his work from injury attorneys.
“I’m not their lawyer, I’m not their PR firm,” said Burke about Pfizer, “They can defend themselves, I’m sure quite well – but from my perspective this lawsuit is one more attempt to erode confidence in all vaccines.”
