“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to help make America healthy again. He's a great guy. He wants to do some things and we're going to let him do it. I just tell him: leave the oil, Bobby […]stay away from liquid gold and, apart from that, have fun.” A few hours after taking note of his victory in the American presidential election, Donald Trump confirmed to his supporters that he was going to give Robert Francis Kennedy Junior “an important role” in health matters After wanting to participate in the Democratic primary, then running as an independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. finally stopped his campaign and called to vote for Donald Trump. The heir to one of America's greatest political dynasties – he is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy (assassinated in 1963) and son of former Justice Minister Robert Kennedy (assassinated in 1963). 1968), “Bobby” is about to set foot in the White House.
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The mission of the former democrat and lawyer specializing in environmental law has not yet been precisely defined. But Robert Kennedy Jr. told those close to him that Donald Trump promised to appoint him Secretary of Health with total control of the Department of Health and Human Services (the federal Department of Health and Human Services) and public health agencies, including Centers for Disease Control (centers for disease control), the Food and Drug Administration (food and drug control agency) and the National Institutes of Health (National Institutes of Health).
If Donald Trump keeps his word, even partially, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will enjoy great influence over the bodies responsible for controlling the agri-food production chain, marketing authorization for drugs, and reimbursement scales. care, public funding of biomedical research and recommendations related to vaccines. Great news for conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccines, and a disaster for the health of Americans. Because “Bobby” makes no secret of it, he is resolutely anti-vax. He is also one of the most important figures of this movement, notably thanks to his extreme positions… and substantial investments.
Vaccines, autism, fleas and Covid-19
Robert Kennedy Jr. has long maintained that there is a link between vaccination and autism. A thesis that he justifies by citing in particular the studies, however rigged, by Andrew Wakefield on the links between vaccines against measles, rubella and mumps (MMR) and autism. And what does it matter if dozens of large-scale scientific studies have analyzed hundreds of thousands of adults and children and have systematically concluded that there is no causal link between vaccines and this digestive disorder? neurodevelopment of genetic origin. What does it matter, too, if all the health agencies on the planet have demonstrated that these theories are false. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remains convinced otherwise.
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In recent years, he has stood out above all for his ability to ride on fears surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. As recalled by New York Times, for example, he promoted the conspiracy theory according to which coronavirus vaccines were developed to control the population using electronic chips. In 2021, he also declared that the Covid-19 vaccine is the “deadliest vaccine ever created”. And at a rally in Washington in 2023, he said vaccination records, sometimes called “vaccine passports,” were worse restrictions than those put in place by the Nazis against Jews in 39-45. “Even under Hitler, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland or hide in an attic like Anne Frank,” he said, before apologizing in the face of the outcry. Which did not prevent him from asserting in 2023 that the Covid-19 virus had been designed specifically to spare Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese.
Antidepressants, mass shootings and fluoride
But “Bobby” is not just anti-vaccine. He is also at war with many drugs. For example, he is convinced that the increase in school shootings in the United States is caused by the increased use of antidepressants. “Children have always had access to guns, and there has never been a time in American history or human history where children went to school and shot their classmates. “It started happening at the same time as the introduction of Prozac and these other drugs,” he proclaimed on the Club Random With Bill Maher podcast, without providing evidence. And for good reason, they do not exist. Research conducted in 2019 on this topic showed that the vast majority of perpetrators of mass shootings were not on antidepressants. And even if this were the case, there is no evidence of “direct or causal association” to blame these drugs.
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Robert Kennedy Jr. is also a big fan of theories about the supposed lack of a link between HIV and AIDS. He is, again, convinced that the addition of fluoride to the American drinking water system (in France, the water is naturally fluoridated), supposed to reduce the number of dental cavities in children, would cause numerous chronic diseases. He also said that fluoride and other chemicals in water would make children transsexual. “We probably underestimate the large part of the problems that we observe in particular in boys which are due to exposure to chemicals, in particular sexual dysphoria”, he affirmed on numerous occasions. Again, his allegations were never supported by evidence.
Alcohol, drugs and environmental protection
However, the potential future Secretary of Health has not always indulged in crazy theories. He had a difficult childhood, falling into alcohol and drugs as a teenager, as recounted in a detailed profile in the magazine Society in November 2023. Arrested in 1983, at age 29, for possession of heroin and sentenced to two years of probation and 800 hours of community service, marked by the overdose death of his brother a year later Later, he finally overcame his addictions.
He then passed the lawyer's exam and launched into the defense of ecology, a field in which he has collected victories. He had, in particular, interrupted a logging project in Canada which pitted a multinational against a reserve of native Americans. In 1997, he also struck an agreement allowing New York City to clean up its natural drinking water reserves. In 2001, he even helped shut down a U.S. Army training camp accused of polluting Puerto Rico's waters. It was during these fights that he gradually developed a distrust of federal authorities, large industries, and even scientists.
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But in 2005, he fell into some crazy theses. That year, Sarah Bridges, a friend of his sister-in-law, presented her theories that vaccine injections caused her son's autism. She says the culprit is thiomersal, a preservative used to prevent bacterial growth in vaccines and which contains mercury. Robert Kennedy Jr., aware of the effects of mercury on the environment, is interested in its fight. He then published a long article, Deadly Immunity (lethal immunity), in the magazine Rolling Stone and on the Salon.com website. He denounces an alleged government plot to conceal the link between thiomersal and neurological disorders in children. The article, devoid of evidence, was finally deleted from the site years later, with the editor-in-chief of Salon.com admitting to having made “the most serious mistake of my career”.
Fear of vaccines, a lucrative business that pays off politically
But the real turning point took place in 2015, when he took charge of the anti-vaccine NGO World Mercury Project. He renamed it Children's Health Defense (CDH) and increased its annual budget from $13,000 to $450,000. It then becomes one of the most important platforms for disinformation on the subject. In 2020, Covid-19 is the spark in Robert Kennedy Jr's anti-vaccine powder. It subsidizes the mass production of articles, videos, books and documentaries from the CDH. A scientific study published in January 2020 details that 54% of anti-vaccine advertising content on Facebook comes from two main actors: “The World Mercury Project and a representative of the Stop Mandatory Vaccination group”. The Children's Health Defense Instagram and Facebook accounts were ultimately suspended. But the CDH refers to other social networks. In 2021, a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified Robert Kennedy Jr. as responsible for 13% of anti-vax content shares on Twitter.
The investment is paying off: the budget of the CDH is exploding. According to the investigation of Societyit goes from 6.8 million dollars in 2020 to 15 million in 2021. The salary paid to Robert Kennedy Jr. by the CDH goes from 131,250 dollars in 2017 to 516,000 in 2022. The anti-vax star also shoots considerable income from his book The Real Anthony Fauciwhich he sold more than a million copies. In it, he accuses the infectious diseases specialist responsible for the anti-covid strategy in the United States of having orchestrated “a historic coup d’état against Western democracy”.
The fear of vaccines and Covid-19 has not only been financially lucrative, it has also given it a new, more sulfurous political aura. Enough to seduce Donald Trump. All that remains for him now is to implement his program. On his and to “suppress the chronic disease epidemic.”
During his campaign, Kennedy Jr. assured that once in the White House, he would order the Department of Justice to investigate the authors and editors of medical journals and prosecute them for “racketeering in the company of pharmaceutical companies. He also promised to make his decisions on health through decrees and, if necessary, “without the cooperation of Congress”. If it is not certain that Donald Trump listens to him on all these points, the color is decided.
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