RFK Jr. destroyed vaccine trust for decades and now claims he is going to restore it?
RFK Jr has made millions targeting vaccines. Firing CDC’s ACIP to install anti-vaccine allies will not fix anything: it will allow him to finish the job.
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Yesterday, June 9, 2025, RFK Jr announced the dismantling of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices via an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, with this opening:
“Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning.”
Let me be perfectly clear: RFK Jr is the one who has created distrust around vaccines and legitimate scientific experts.
RFK Jr. has the audacity to pretend he is a concerned reformer trying to repair public trust in vaccines but he is the one who has spent over twenty years systematically attacking them. For profit.
RFK Jr. has built a multi-million dollar empire manufacturing vaccine distrust. His organization, Children's Health Defense, raked in over $16 million in 2021 alone—money made by terrifying parents, undermining public health, and selling false solutions.
This isn't advocacy; it's a business model. Every vaccine controversy he fabricates, every conspiracy theory he spreads, every scientific institution he attacks leads to donations, book sales, legal fees, speaking fees, and supplement partnerships.
The erosion of trust in vaccines, health agencies, and scientific institutions is an intentional, well-funded, and coordinated disinformation campaign with RFK and his organization, Children’s Health Defense, leading the charge.
Now, as HHS Secretary, he's not changing his business—he's expanding it, using he newfound power to implement the agenda that has made him wealthy while endangering public health. Dismantling CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is the latest move in his plan.
Do not be fooled. Do not sanitize him. Do NOT call him a vaccine skeptic: he is not a skeptic, he is an anti-vaccine profiteer. (I swear, if I see another media outlet use that phrase I will scream). Do not erase his long and profitable war on science—which started with anti-agriculture activism even before he set his sights on vaccines.
RFK has been personally manufacturing distrust in vaccines for decades.
A brief trip down memory lane of RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine profiteering:
Starting as far back as 2000, RFK Jr. spread the myth that vaccines are linked to autism, particularly among his celebrity connections here in the US. Yes, he started his anti-vaccine campaign before people like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Robert DeNiro. He also claimed that thimerosal, an antimicrobial, was to blame for autism.
In 2005, RFK Jr. wrote a piece in Salon called Deadly Immunity where he spread lies about vaccines, accused our regulatory agencies (CDC and FDA) of covering up a conspiracy to hide vaccine dangers. This is the bedrock of medical conspiracism, which he has been profiting off of for decades. His article, like everything he says, was filled with lies and blatant falsehoods. It was eventually retracted by Salon—but the horse was out of the barn by then. His writing is the match that lit the “mercury in vaccines” panic-driven fire that is STILL rampant, twenty years later.
Side note: The Environmental Working Group (EWG) took a page from RFK Jr’s book and wrote a similar article in 2014 called “Overloaded” where they also repeated lies about mercury and other ‘toxic ingredients’ in vaccines.
RFK Jr founded Children’s Health Defense, a blatantly misnamed organization that is one of the largest purveyors of anti-science propaganda around the world. In 2020 alone, CHD was responsible for 54% of anti-vaccine social media content identified by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. CHD is one of two organizations responsible for funding the majority of anti-vaccine ads on social media globally.
RFK Jr and CHD makes millions of dollars every year which fuels the distribution of anti-science disinformation. It funds the filing of unsubstantiated lawsuits related to vaccines, food, pesticides, and more.
In 2021 alone, CHD brought in $16 million by exploiting the pandemic to spread COVID-19 disinformation. Exploiting a pandemic that caused millions of deaths.
RFK Jr is one of the Disinformation Dozen and a Pandemic Profiteer, individuals who, spread and profit the most anti-vaccine disinformation globally.
RFK Jr. was responsible for accelerating a measles outbreak in Samoa that sickened thousands and killed 83 people, mostly children. RFK wrote to the Samoan Prime Minister urging him to halt vaccine mandates and undermine the importance of MMR vaccines.
By the end of the outbreak
3% of Samoa was infected
20% of infants under 1 year got measles
1 in 150 babies died
91.4% of deaths were in kids younger than 15.
For context, a similar scale measles outbreak in the US:
10.2 million measles infections
2.2 million infants under 1 year with measles
73,500 babies dead
129,200 total deaths, with 118,088 of them among kids under 15.
RFK Jr. was directly responsible for that devastation. And don’t minimize it because Samoa has a population of only 216,000. That was his dry run to what he is doing in the US now.
RFK Jr has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany and has referred to public health officials and scientific experts as fascists, including during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
He also minimized COVID’s risks while claiming mRNA vaccines were “experimental gene therapy” and falsely linked them to infertility, miscarriage, and death.
Have you heard any of these claims? Well, RFK Jr is the originator of them.
For over twenty years, RFK Jr has harassed scientists, sent his acolytes after them—especially those that dare to speak out against his lies, spread conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, accused the media of being “pharma puppets,” and now, as HHS Secretary, is doing every single thing in his power to dismantle our public health and scientific institutions that are affiliated with vaccines.
During this year’s measles outbreak in the US, RFK Jr repeatedly minimized the severity of measles, downplayed the importance of the MMR vaccine, and touted unproven and ineffective alternatives like vitamin A supplements, to the point where people were overdosing on vitamin A.
RFK Jr even said that measles deaths were normal when the US hasn’t seen a death due to measles in a decade. Why haven’t we seen measles deaths? Because of vaccines.
RFK Jr is currently making millions of dollars by attacking the HPV vaccine—one of our current vaccines that also prevents multiple types of cancer. (read more below)
In his role as HHS Secretary, RFK Jr has tapped anti-vaccine activist David Geier to ‘identify’ the cause of autism. Geier has no scientific credentials and is responsible for chemically castrating children under the guise of ‘autism therapy’ that he and his dad made millions of dollars from.
RFK Jr wants you to believe he’s going to focus on restoring trust in vaccines?
RFK Jr. didn’t inherit a crisis of trust. He built it. Brick by brick. Press release by press release. Lawsuit by lawsuit. Every article on CHD’s website. Every collaboration with other anti-vaccine activists. Every podcast appearance.
And now that he’s been given the reins of our health agencies, he is not going to fix anything—he’s going to try to finish what he started 20 years ago.
ACIP isn’t filled with conflicts of interest, but RFK Jr’s replacements sure will be.
This latest action? Firing all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). RFK Jr claims the current committee is ‘plagued with persistent conflicts of interest’ and he is going to cleaning it up, but that’s another lie.
He claims 97% of the ACIP members have conflicts of interest, but that number is fake. It’s based on a 2009 Inspector General report that found clerical errors in documentation among ACIP members, not actual conflicts of interest. And this has already been corrected over a decade ago.
But can’t let reality get in the way of your ongoing conspiracy, am I right?
The ACIP committee is staffed with legitimate experts in vaccine science, infectious diseases, children’s health, immunology. RFK Jr removed all of them and he is going to fill the committee with his own picks.
RFK Jr’s selections for ACIP will all be anti-vaccine activists with real conflicts of interest.
Most of them will likely have no relevant expertise in any of the subjects required to evaluate vaccine safety, efficacy, and risk-benefit: the actual things ACIP does.
A short list includes: David Geier, James Lyons-Weiler, Brian Hooker, Peter McCullough, Byram Bridle, Russell Blaylock, Paul Thomas, Sherri Tenpenny, Mark Hyman, Christiane Northrup, Andrew Wakefield, Del Bigtree, Joseph Mercola, Bob Sears, Aaron Siri.
The common theme? These individuals have anti-vaccine organizations that directly profit by undermining vaccines, they spread disproven lies about the harms of vaccines, they work with RFK Jr’s Children’s Health Defense, and they have created fake ‘journals’ to publish falsehoods (see example below):
ACIP is one of the only safeguards to protect US vaccine policy against political influence. RFK Jr is turning it into an ideological tool.
ACIP is composed of external appointees that are not employees of CDC or the government. These include experts in infectious disease, vaccine science, immunology, pediatrics, epidemiology (the data science portion). ACIP members have strict procedures for disclosures of real conflicts of interest and recusal when appropriate. They are trained in their respective subject-matter expertise, they have public hearings where they discuss the data on vaccines, the risk-benefit assessment for different populations, and vote—publicly.
RFK Jr’s dismantling of ACIP is not reform. It’s demolition.
If you recall, if ACIP doesn’t make science-based recommendations for vaccines:
New vaccines are not required to be covered by insurance, which will impact low income families the most.
Pregnant people, kids, and immunocompromised patients lose guaranteed access to vaccines that literally save their lives.
School vaccine requirements become politicized battlegrounds, not public health tools.
Public trust will continue to decline, leading to lower vaccination rates and outbreaks of preventable diseases.
Responses to those emerging outbreaks of infectious diseases will halt.
RFK Jr’s policies will kill people. The ones who will be harmed the most? Children. Vulnerable families. People with complex medical needs. People in rural communities with health inequities.
RFK Jr is anti-vaccine: do not sanitize him.
RFK Jr. loves to claim he’s just asking questions. He claims he’s not anti-vaccine—he just wants “safe vaccines.”
Guess what? It’s a lie. It’s always been a lie.
We have safe vaccines. We have safe vaccines that save millions of lives every year. And we have those safe vaccines because of scientific experts that develop vaccines, that study vaccines, that conduct clinical trials, that discuss the data, that make recommendations for our citizens.
Vaccines are the real MVP: they've been saving lives for hundreds of years.
Vaccines are objectively one of the most impactful scientific interventions in human history. Today, we have vaccines that protect against dozens of debilitating and deadly diseases, with new candidates under study all the time.
RFK Jr isn’t trying to advocate for safe vaccines or restore public trust.
RFK Jr is trying to replace trust and science-based medicine with disinformation and wellness profiteering so that he and his buddies can make money while all of us get sicker and more vulnerable.
RFK Jr is a threat to public health and must be removed as HHS Secretary.
There is a crisis of trust in public health: one RFK Jr created. He isn’t the solution, he’s the architect.
You don’t get to scream “corruption!” for 20 years, build a multi-million dollar empire on conspiracy, sue organizations and government agencies for profit, and then pretend you’re the one who is going to restore confidence.
Our elected officials—you know, the ones who are supposed to represent their constituents (that’s us) gave him even more power and authority by confirming him as HHS Secretary. Even with archives of history. Even with all of the evidence that shows he has done the opposite of improving health for decades. Even with zero relevant expertise and credentials whatsoever. They are complicit. They are to blame as much as RFK Jr is. Hold them accountable now.
Let them know that rebuilding trust doesn’t happen by dismantling scientific expertise. By cutting funding for national research programs. By pretending there are equal sides on the vaccine discussion. By ensuring that people in our communities will get sick and die because of their actions and RFK Jr’s.
Rebuilding trust happens when we fund and support systems and safeguards that are transparent, inclusive, data-driven, and accountable. ACIP was one of those and RFK Jr just lit the fuse to blow it up.
This is not about public health. This is not about trust. RFK Jr’s actions are about power, ego, control, and profit.
Every single person must fight back. We are nearing a precipice where there will be generational harm done to our scientific infrastructure, our public health institutions, our health. Soon, there will be no recovering from it.
RFK Jr. isn’t making America healthy. He’s making it sicker, poorer, and more vulnerable to preventable death.
Now, more than ever, we all must join in the fight for science.
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.
More science education, less disinformation.
- Andrea
ImmunoLogic is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below:
Primary Care doc of 40 yrs here. Thanks for your work Dr Love . I have read about RFK for 20 years so I am not too surprised . It’s going to be a long winter for public health . Public support for vaccines will return some day ( after many tragic losses /injuries from preventable diseases ) . The reason vaccines can return is that there is a large market for them , despite all the resistance and “skepticism “ . Remarkable how the vaccine / anti vaccine war goes all the way back to smallpox . It is ironic that smallpox, one of the first truly successful vaccines , was for a human only infection. The success of smallpox vaccine makes all other vaccines look inadequate . Not true of course, but it takes time to explain this to folks. I am constantly mention this bit of history to patients when they even hint they might be open to considering a vaccine.
One of my greatest concerns is that organizations I’ve counted upon for reliable information (e.g., NIH, CDC, FDA) now feel suspect because the knowledgeable people are being fired and replaced by insane people. Granted, none of these organizations have been perfect, but I believed they would uphold the most rigorous scientific standards in gathering and disseminating health information. At this point, I rely heavily upon individuals like you, who practice ethically. I am grateful!