Kennedy’s (Former) Anti-Vax Group Running Interference On Measles
The recent measles outbreaks are a headache for the HHS secretary, but his allies have been sowing doubt for weeks.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is in a difficult spot following the measles deaths of several unvaccinated American children, but his former colleagues have his back.
Amid a torrent of negative press, Kennedy has been sending mixed signals in an apparent attempt to soften his image amid outbreaks of the virus, which was previously eliminated in the U.S. Earlier this month, the anti-vaccine activist-turned-public health official traveled to Texas to meet with families of two of the dead children after which he took to X with a public statement that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was, in fact, "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles." Then, in a CBS News interview, the secretary said “people should get the measles vaccine, but the government should not be mandating those.”
The remarks were the most explicit support Kennedy has offered for the MMR vaccine he spent years vilifying. After the first unvaccinated child died in February, he made a similar remark but fell short of actually encouraging vaccination.
At the same time, however, Kennedy has been promoting unproven treatments for measles. In another post on X, for example, he said he met with two Texas doctors—Ben Edwards, founder of the wellness company Veritas Medical, and Richard Bartlett—who he claimed had treated child measles patients with the aerosolized steroid budesonide and antibiotic clarithromycin.
Kennedy has also been casting doubt on the cause of the measles deaths. In a recent Fox News interview, he was asked if he believed the MMR vaccine would have saved 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand, who died on April 3 and had no underlying conditions according to her doctors. In response, he suggested that her health had been poor prior to infection and that perhaps the virus had not been the cause of her death after all, adding, “We need to do better at treating kids who have this disease, and not just saying the only answer is vaccination.”
The secretary’s statements muddying the waters around the measles outbreaks echo messaging from Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vaccine group he helmed for years. The group has been pushing false claims about the devolving situation for months.
Kennedy joined CHD in 2015 when it was still the World Mercury Project. He served as chairman until last year and is credited as the rebranded group’s founder. With the group behind him, Kennedy became one of the most prolific spreaders of vaccine misinformation on the internet, according to the 2021 “Disinformation Dozen” report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
With his independent presidential campaign, Kennedy allegedly went on leave from CHD, and at his Senate confirmation hearings in January, the anti-vax activist said he had severed ties with the organization. But questions have swirled about his relationship with the group ever since. CHD did not respond to our inquiry on the matter.
What is known is that during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy cited a study published in an obscure journal run by his allies including CHD contributors and key personnel like CEO Mary Holland and chief scientific officer Brian Hooker. Then last month, after the group came under fire for briefly hosting a website full of vaccine misinformation made to look like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s page, Kennedy’s HHS stepped in and called on organization to take it down.
Meanwhile, the “about” dropdown menu of the CHD website still includes a “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” link, which directs to his bio. After his time as secretary, the anti-vax activist could legally make a return to the organization. It is not uncommon for political appointees to take up jobs at nonprofits after their time in government.
For weeks, CHD has been running interference with the measles outbreaks that have bedeviled Kennedy, downplaying the dangers and questioning the death toll. The group’s tactics echo those of right-wing dark money groups at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as they worked to reopen the economy despite the mounting body count.
Dorit Reiss, a law professor from the University of California, San Francisco, who specializes in vaccine law and policy, said CHD’s tactics were “very much the anti-vaccine playbook.”
“Any death after vaccine, even a while after, is because of vaccines with no evidence,” Reiss said. “Any death from disease can be explained away.”
Following the death of a six-year-old child in Texas this February—the first child death from the virus in the U.S. in 22 years—CHD’s media outfit, The Defender, ran a piece questioning the reporting. Headlined, “Texas Reports Death of Child Who Tested Positive for Measles, But Releases Few Details,” the article claimed that “Some doctors and scientists pushed back, saying too little information about the child’s health has been released so far to assume that a measles vaccine would have prevented the death.”
CHD even sent representatives—Hooker and its director of programming, Polly Tommey—out to Texas to film a video conversation with the parents of the deceased child, during which they touted unproven treatments and cast more doubt on the MMR vaccine. In the video, the parents, who are Mennonites, said the media was overhyping the dangers of the virus and that they were not convinced vaccination was necessary.
The group also obtained the child’s medical records and passed them to longtime Kennedy ally Dr. Pierre Kory, who reviewed them and, unsurprisingly, concluded that measles was not to blame for the death. The co-founder of the anti-vaccine group Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (now rebranded as Independent Medical Alliance), Kory is known for his unrelenting promotion of ivermectin for COVID despite evidence it is not effective against the virus and for having had his board certifications revoked for spreading misinformation.
In a March 19 video discussion with Hooker and Tommey, the disgraced doctor insisted that the child “did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination,” pinning the blame instead on medical error. According to Kory, the death was the result of incorrect antibiotic management of a secondary bacterial pneumonia infection and that her pneumonia had “little to do with measles.”
Pneumonia is a common complication of measles infection, and, more generally, secondary bacterial pneumonias are well-documented occurrences with viral diseases. Per Kory’s account, the child had mycoplasma pneumonia, sometimes called walking pneumonia, which is generally mild and has an extremely low mortality rate estimated at less than 0.1%.
The next day, the disgraced doctor appeared alongside Holland and Hooker on Steve Bannon’s misinformation-spreadling podcast to push the narrative.
Privately, however, Kory tells a very different story, acknowledging the role of measles in causing the death. In a recorded conversation with Dr. Alex Morozov, founder of the pro-science group Eviva Partners, Kory suggested that the child had died from a weaponized form of measles.
The conversation took place at the recent “Summit for Truth & Wellness” in Rochester, New York, which was hosted by the Christian wellness group Americans for Healthcare Alternatives.
“Do you want to know the real story on this case?” Kory said. “Quite a few of us believe that they weaponized the measles virus…She got sicker from this measles probably because they monkeyed with the measles virus…Do you know how many bioweapons labs there are and what they can do?”
With the death of the second unvaccinated child, Hildebrand, CHD claimed it has been “confirmed” that measles was not the cause—again relying on Kory’s assessment—and that the media is lying. The group also shot a video with the father of the child in which he stated that he still would not vaccinate his children.
On its website, CHD is offering a free ebook titled, “The Measles Book: Thirty-Five Secrets the Government and the Media Aren’t Telling You about Measles and the Measles Vaccine.”
“As measles outbreaks spark media fear campaigns, separating fact from fiction is harder than ever,” the description for the book reads.
Later this week, CHD is holding an event for its members called “Up Close: Inside the Measles Deception,” featuring Kory and Edwards along with Hooker and Polly Tommey, the group’s director of programming. The discussion is being billed as “a deep dive into the media deception surrounding the recent measles outbreak.”
“This in-depth discussion will feature the people who were on the ground and inside the community in West Texas, including treating physician Dr. Ben Edwards, CHD’s own Brian Hooker and Polly Tommey, who reported from the scene with consequential information that is not available anywhere else, and Dr. Pierre Kory, who was among the first people to expose the lie that the measles had claimed a life,” a promotional email read.