VAXX 5
ESTB 7 25 RFK ON MRNA INSANITY
SEE MAHA RFK2 3
see crm 4
SEE MEASLES = KID KILLER
SEE IVERMECTIN FLORIDA LADAPO
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Newsmax host speculates that Jalen Hurts' blood clots are due to the COVID vaccine
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October 21, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Finnerty
ROB FINNERTY (HOST): You know it's not normal. It keeps happening. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, a Super Bowl champion, out for the season, maybe the end of his career. Who knows? After blood clots were found in both lungs, he's in his 20's, and this just keeps happening.
Seemingly healthy young athletes dying or suffering major medical emergencies since getting the mRNA COVID vaccine that is still experimental. They were mass administered to a global population, and no one in the medical community seems to have any interest in connecting the dots or even attempting to do so between this vaccine, which Jalen Hurts was very vocal about getting, and athletes dying or getting really, really sick.
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Right-wing figures use Damar Hamlin's NFL injury to spread anti-vaccine misinformation
01/03/23 4:15 PM EST
Bronny James is the latest target of the antivax conspiracy theory echo chamber
07/26/23 2:33 PM EDT
10/21/26
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reboot callback?
- Anti-vax conspiracy theorist Mat Staver is now warning that the nation's blood supply has been contaminated by the COVID-19 vaccine: "Many of us who did not get the COVID shot do not want COVID-tainted blood."
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- Kathryn Wilkens @ Mediaite: GOP Rep Falsely Claims 82% of Women Vaccinated in First Two Trimesters Miscarried
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) pushed the unfounded claim on Fox Business Tuesday that 82% of women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during their first or second trimester suffered a miscarriage.
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MMA
07/16/26
July 15, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Finnerty
ROB FINNERTY (HOST):And today, during the nomination hearing to confirm the new CDC director, she was asked about those COVID mRNA vaccines.
...
Oh my goodness. Please pull that nomination. They are not safe. They are not effective. They are killing people to this day. It has been documented, and it's only getting worse. And until we address this or confront this, it is going to continue to get worse. Pull that woman's nomination. That is an absurd response to that Democrat question.
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Finally, Lauren Witzke weighs in on the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Lindsey Graham got vaxxed and boosted, and told you to get vaxxed and boosted. Ultimately, it killed him, but thankfully it killed him before he could kill any more of your children in one of his endless wars for Israel."
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Alex Clark guest: “People don't die from measles in modern countries where children are well fed and well nourished”
Bob Sears on TPUSA's Culture Apothecary: “The media portrays measles as a deadly infection that's going to kill everyone left and right. That's not played out in our country for many decades now. It's not a fatal infection in a well-nourished nation.”
Written by Media Matters Staff
:{Published 06/23/26
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From the June 22, 2026, edition of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark,posted on Spotify
ALEX CLARK (HOST): So what else could come back besides chickenpox?
BOB SEARS (GUEST): Measles could come back.
CLARK: Is that concerning?
SEARS: People don't die from measles in modern countries where children are well fed and well nourished.
CLARK: But what about these recent stories? I thought there were kids that died of measles.
SEARS: That is up for debate.
CLARK: What do you mean?
SEARS: There's some interesting information that has come out, very recent. The families of the kids who died of measles in Texas recently, that was, like, last year. I mean, this is all, you know, second, third hand, so I'm not a firsthand, you know, privy to this information. But what was has been reported and published on online is some lawyers hired some hired some doctors to review the medical records of those children who tragically died, and those children died from other infectious complications from other bacteria after they are already done with measles. The measles had already come and gone. They were better from measles and they died from other things. And the hospitals apparently ignored that and then didn't provide them with the right care. I don't know firsthand what's true about this.
CLARK: OK.
SEARS: But what I know is the chance of a healthy child dying from measles who's well nourished is -- it's probably somewhere as high as one in eighty thousand or one in a hundred thousand. It's it's it's a very tiny number. When you look at published research, you'll see numbers as as high as one in ten thousand cases where kids will die of measles. If you include kids who are not well nourished, kids who maybe have like vitamin A deficiency or really slim, not growing well, a little undernourished, if you include them, it's maybe one in ten thousand rate of death. So that's a very small fatality rate for an infection.
The media portrays measles as a deadly infection that's going to kill everyone left and right. That's not played out in our country for many decades now. It's not a fatal infection in a well-nourished nation. So the answer, as measles continues to increase, is let's feed our children healthy. Let's feed our kids vitamin A foods. Let's give them cod liver oil so they get supplemented with vitamin A. If you have enough vitamin A in your system, you should sail through measles without problems. It's not a cure. It doesn't stop you from getting measles, but it should make your measles way less severe. And that's the answer.
And because, honestly, fewer and fewer people are comfortable with the measles vaccine because it's part of the MMR vaccine, the triple live virus MMR vaccine, because fewer people get that vaccine now, I think consequently, we're going to see more measles. And that doesn't mean that the vaccine is why we got rid of measles in the first place. I mean the reason we got rid of measles fatalities is because we all started eating better.
So, I mean, measles is a very complicated discussion. It probably deserves its own hour, you know, alone, and we don't have time for that. But bottom line is the vaccine is one of the riskier ones, so people don't trust it as much anymore. People aren't getting it as much anymore. I don't think we can ignore the likelihood that we're going to see more measles because of that. So we can prepare ourselves, like I mentioned, with good nutrition to kind of weather that increases in measles. Maybe we'll come out with a safer measles vaccine in the future, and people will feel comfortable with that with that again.
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“Convenient mythologies require neither evidence nor logic.” —*Edward S. Herman, “Manufactured Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media”
In a number of articles on its website, PEN America explains in striking detail the right-wing Trojan horse of “parental rights,” illuminating the threat caused by policymakers focused on this theater in the culture war.
PEN — which has gained a global reputation for standing “at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide” — argues that “parents’ rights” is not a source of freedom as claimed, but the crux of an ideological rigidity exercised by MAGA Republicans.
Replace the terms “books” and “literature” with “vaccinations” in the narratives, and the poisonous effects of “parents’ rights” and “medical freedom” on Florida’s public health system becomes clear.
Under the guise of “freedom,” the DeSantis administration including Surgeon General Joe Ladapo has established policies that have directly contributed to the measles outbreak that has spread across the state.
Yet, despite the proliferation of this disease, which has placed Florida fourth in the United States with 152 confirmed cases in 2025-26 and 145 confirmed cases so far this year, state officials have acted as if “there’s nothing to see here.”
Collier County is the center of an outbreak that began in January at Ave Maria University. The number of reported cases out of Collier has remained steady at 106, with most cases affecting those aged 15 to 24. According to the Florida Department of Health, Florida is up to 150 cases this year as of the week ending May 2. Officials note that there is “a continuing slowdown in infections after outbreaks earlier this year.”
Contagion
Measles is one of the most contagious communicable diseases on record. With the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, measles is easy to control. The MMR vaccine is credited with saving the lives of millions of people globally over the past 50 years.
Traditional medical experts warn that unvaccinated children need to stay home after measles exposure to stop transmission of this highly contagious disease. If not, chances of a prolonged outbreak increase significantly. Among unvaccinated people, nine of 10 who’re exposed will get infected.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican legislators, and some health officials might have avoided the outbreak had they treated it as a strictly health-related issue not a politically charged one. And if DeSantis and Ladapo weren’t so cavalier about tossing around inaccurate data, taking problems out of context, or selectively presenting information, Florida wouldn’t be in this situation.
Experts point to vaccine hesitancy and fear sown by MAGA Republicans as reasons why fewer parents are interested in vaccinating their children. According to Politico, vaccine hesitancy has “evolved into a central pillar of the MAGA movement’s health policy, often blending medical skepticism with a desire to dismantle public health regulations.”
Skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines, and a growing distrust of traditional childhood vaccines, are “closely tied to the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda led by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Politico writes.
The publication cites a 2023 Morning Consult poll showing that “as the number of voters more doubtful of vaccines has risen — despite scientific evidence that they’re safe and effective — it has come almost exclusively from one political party. While opposition to more established vaccines is still far from a majority position among Republicans, significant numbers question their safety and say Americans shouldn’t be encouraged to get them.”
Hubris
Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani capture perfectly the hubris surrounding Florida’s widening measles epidemic.
Jetelina, an epidemiologist, and Panthagani, an emergency physician at Yale University, have written that by ignoring common sense and medical advice, Florida’s health officials risk a mushrooming measles outbreak. Negligence by Lapado, DeSantis, and the MAHA crew has endangered citizens and inflamed the outbreak.
“This is happening in a state with a growing skepticism of vaccinations and an ongoing debate between individualism and the good of the larger population that came to a head during the COVID pandemic,” the authors write in a 2024 opinion piece in Scientific American.
“But containing measles, which can spread quickly, should not be up for debate. Yet this is what is happening in Florida, and it’s putting children’s health at risk.”
A 2025 study from the Cureus Journal of Science and Medicine, published in PubMed, examines how “declining vaccine uptake and growing vaccine hesitancy created pockets of susceptibility that enabled the outbreak.”
DeSantis and Lapado are vigorously pushing to make it easier for parents to opt their children out of mandatory school vaccines — a proposal the Florida House refused to pass in the 2026 regular session and the just-completed special session.
‘Parental rights’
“Since 2021, the Sunshine State has led the country in advancing the parental rights agenda. Contrary to its name, this agenda has used fuzzy, coded language to manufacture moral panic, and to deliver control over what students can read and learn in schools not into the hands of all parents but to a particular segment of citizens — some not even parents but community members,” PEN America officials and researchers said.
“The cumulative effect has been to privilege some parents’ ideological preferences above all others, tie the hands of educators, and limit students’ access to information through curricular prohibitions and book bans.”
The same dynamic applies to health care and vaccines.
In its report on “parental rights” legislation, PEN cautioned that despite the fact that encouraging greater parental involvement in schools can seem like common sense, “these bills have an ulterior motive driving them: to empower a vocal and censorship-minded minority with greater opportunity to scrutinize public education and intimidate educators with threats of punishment.”
In Florida, the DeSantis administration and Republicans in the Legislature have taken up the battle cry. Ladapo and DeSantis announced in a press conference their intention of eliminating childhood vaccine mandates. Medical experts note that all 50 states enforce childhood vaccine mandates, with all states allowing medical exemptions and more than half — including Florida — allowing religious exemptions
Lyndon Haviland of the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy blames the “perfect storm” of vaccine skepticism, failed leadership, and broken trust as the core reasons for the outbreak.
The eruption of measles in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere, she contends, aren’t isolated events.
Manufactured distrust
“Cases have also surfaced in Alaska, California, New Mexico, New York City, Georgia, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Concern that reports will continue to grow is rising,” she writes.
“It’s especially worrisome considering that the measles virus was completely eliminated in the U.S. as recently as the year 2000. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed this achievement to a “highly effective vaccine program in the United States, as well as better measles control in the Americas region.”
So, how did we get here?
“The answer: distrust. Distrust in health experts, who years ago were revered as national authorities on serious medical issues. Distrust in public health agencies, the CDC, and the Food and Drug Administration specifically, once respected as credible information resources. Distrust in the strength and rigor of vaccine testing protocols, the pharmaceutical industry itself and the broader politicization of public health.”
Haviland and other health experts fear ‘America, which was once considered a world leader in public health, has lost decades of progress in preventing the spread of a deadly disease with a provably safe therapy that has successfully saved millions of American lives.”
The focus on vaccine hesitancy “underplays the significant backlash against vaccines and the flood of anti-vaccine misinformation to which many Americans have been subjected,” Haviland continues.
“The reality is that Americans are increasingly adopting a more dismissive mindset in the way they view vaccine efficacy. Skepticism, rather than hesitancy, is a more accurate term to describe America’s perception of vaccines — and it shows no sign of slowing down.”
A certain arrogance
There is a certain arrogance the MAGA multitude carry. They act as though they have a direct line to God and the divine right to determine what’s best for the rest of us. Hence, the series of seemingly endless toxic, selfish crusades that former youth pastor and author John Pavlovitz argues “amplify baseless anti-science propaganda.”
This poisonous mindset has a human cost. Almost 90,000 people in the Sunshine State have died because of COVID; others have succumbed to preventable diseases like the flu.
There’s no telling when this measles outbreak will end but many in health circles and elsewhere will not stop fighting to protect America’s people against this destructive public health crisis.
Kevin Griffis, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy’s director for media relations and public affairs, in an April 22 opinion piece wrote, “Americans can handle hard truths. What they should not have to tolerate is selective concern dressed up as science. … Public health depends on trust. Trust depends on honesty.”
“When the nation’s top health official pretends otherwise — or claims ignorance when it is politically convenient, so as not to raise the ire of MAHA activists — it is not public health leadership. It is yet another example of politics and ideology trumping evidence.”
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Right-wing figures are spreading “plandemic” conspiracy theories about the hantavirus
Written by Alex Kaplan
:{Published 05/13/26
As concerns about the spread of hantavirus emerge, right-wing and far-right figures are spreading conspiracy theories on podcasts and social media that the virus came from a lab and may be a new “plandemic” (planned pandemic) created to push vaccines, disrupt upcoming elections, or achieve other nefarious goals.
The conspiracy theories are similar to those spread among the right during the COVID-19 pandemic that harmed efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus and contributed to declining vaccination rates.
Hantavirus concerns arise after outbreak on cruise ship}:
- In early May, a cruise ship sailing the Atlantic Ocean experienced an outbreak of hantavirus, a typically rodent-borne virus, causing at least three deaths and at least eight others to become ill or test positive for the virus. In response, passengers from more than 20 countries were flown home and quarantined, including an American who “was suspected of infection after initial testing.”
Nevertheless, the World Health Organization has said that “the risk of hantavirus spreading to the general population is ‘absolutely low,’” with the organization’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness saying, “This is not the start of an epidemic, this is not the start of a pandemic.”
A hantavirus vaccine is currently in development, though it could be years before it is released.
- ## “Plandemic” conspiracy theories about hantavirus are spreading online
- Some right-wing and far-right figures on podcasts and social media have been baselessly claiming that hantavirus is the beginning of a planned outbreak.
For instance, David Niño Rodriguez, a podcaster whom The Daily Beast described as “a vocal QAnon supporter,” posted on Truth Social about hantavirus, claiming that “they’re moving into desperate territory” and that the death of late actor Gene Hackman’s wife from the virus “was just the beginning. … Here we go again.”
Some were more specific about who they thought was responsible for the spread of the virus — like the World Health Organization — and their alleged nefarious reasons, which include forcing vaccines on people and “rig[ging] elections.”
Sherri Tenpenny, a podcaster with a history of spreading vaccine misinformation, suggested that the WHO may have had a role in the outbreak to help secure a treaty, claiming that “they can’t agree” on “how countries … ensure equitable access to vaccines and treatments,” and questioning if the ship outbreak was a “coincidence.”
On conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ network, host Harrison Smith said, “If I was the bad guy, you know what I would do? I’d really release the hantavirus. I would really have an actually super deadly virus spreading from person to person, and then I would release a real vaccine.”
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From the May 7, 2026, edition of The Alex Jones Network's War Room
- An account for the far-right podcast X22 Report suggested in a social media post that this could be “another manufactured event to push vaccines.”
“Pepe Deluxe,” whom Vice described as an “influential QAnon promoter,” shared a social media post — which said “LMAO - incoming plandemic” in response to news of WHO’s media briefing on hantavirus — with Pepe Deluxe also writing, “I’m sure they already have a vaccine ready 🙄.”
On another podcast, The Shannon Joy Show, gynecologist James Thorp, who has spread vaccine misinformation, claimed that “this hantavirus event and future events will be used to scare the population into taking the vaccines,” and told viewers, “Don’t ever take a vaccine for the hantavirus.”
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From the May 11, 2026, edition of The Shannon Joy Show, streamed on Rumble
- Mikki Willis, the filmmaker behind the viral *Plandemic* film that helped popularize the conspiracy theory that the COVID pandemic was planned, suggested that “they are … gonna try this again” with hantavirus, falsely adding that “Pfizer already has a vaccine ready.”
:{Meanwhile, Judy Mikovits, who was featured in Plandemic, spoke with Rodriguez about hantavirus, somehow bringing vaccine boosters into it.
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From a May 8, 2026, video from Ninoscorner.tv, uploaded to Rumble
JUDY MIKOVITS: So, here we are on a — here we are on a — on a cruise ship. Oh, okay. So, you've got — you've — and you're testing now not with an antibody. Take those five people and say, show me an antibody to hantavirus, meaning you've been exposed. Because if you're injected with the virus, that's the only way you can get it.
...
DAVID NIÑO RODRIGUEZ (HOST): No. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. If you get — if you're injected with it, it would tell me that the vaccinated are going to be the ones —
MIKOVITS: Correct, and it's the vaccinated from the coronaviruses. The only way you will test positive for an antibody and it is to be injected with the virus. And it would have come from every booster. It would have come from the monkey mouse, cow, pig, from 1993. The last time they tried to play the hanta game was right after my PhD thesis.
- Several figures suggested that the virus was released to disrupt the 2026 elections. Podcast host Tim Pool said that the “hantavirus pandemic panic” was “just in time for a midterm election” (though he also said the virus was “no big story”). And a fellow podcaster, Benny Johnson, called the virus “an op to rig elections." A Newsmax host later similarly said, “They are doing it all over again on purpose. COVID started in March 2020, impacted the November elections. Hantavirus started in May of 2026.”
A user on the far-right forum previously known as TheDonald wrote that “the best condition for a virus to spread, is an election year.”
And an article on the The Gateway Pundit for a “Contagion Emergency Kit” mused about whether hantavirus was “another plandemic” and a “transparent effort to terrorize Americans and swing the mid-terms against President Trump.”
Some social media users also pointed to a 2022 post with the text “2023: Corona ended 2026: Hantavirus” and claimed the post was proof of a “White Hat exposure operation.” A user on the conspiracy subreddit called the post “predictive programming” and said it “feels like yet another planned out, manufactured ritual.” (Pool mentioned it on his podcast as well.)
Some figures also suggested the hantavirus outbreak was caused by a lab leak in Australia. Podcaster Seth Holehouse said, “Three hundred and twenty-three vials containing deadly viruses go missing from a lab in Australia. … Two vials contain the hantavirus. Imagine that. … So, is this kind of like the precursor? Is this like the Wuhan lab leak?”
- ## Why does this sound familiar?
- These claims about hantavirus are essentially recycled versions of what the right and far right pushed during the coronavirus pandemic: that the pandemic was planned, that it was a ploy to overthrow Trump or help Democrats win the 2020 election, and that “the vaccine was invented before the COVID-19 pandemic to advance vaccine sales.”
Conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 helped drive down COVID vaccination rates and primed people to reject other vaccines as well. This has had other long-term consequences, possibly contributing to declining vaccine rates and outbreaks of measles, which may lead to the U.S. losing its measles elimination status. Recycling the same claims could help further entrench that vaccine hesitancy and erode public trust in health institutions at a time when the Trump administration has already been cutting federal resources for pandemic preparedness.
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Nobel laureate Paul Krugman calls right-wing politics “deadly” — and predicts that “MAGA Will Kill Many Americans,” by the thousands, driven by greed and willful ignorance.
Krugman goes one step further, arguing outright that this is not by accident:
“Does MAGA want to see thousands of Americans die prematurely from smoking and refusal to get vaccinated? Yes,” he writes.
He argues that the right’s decades-long opposition to health care is driven by greed, especially from “wealthy donors unwilling to pay taxes to help others in need.”
Krugman points to Tuesday’s decision by Trump’s FDA to allow blueberry and mango-flavored vapes, which critics warn will increase use among the young.
Why?
“Trump is reportedly hoping that support for vaping will win back support from young men,” Krugman writes — a constituency the president has been losing during his second term in office.
There’s also the recent decision, again by Trump’s FDA, to block the release of studies finding the COVID-19 and shingles vaccines safe, with side effects rare.
“Beyond this,” he continues, “right-wing politics in America often goes hand in hand with hostility to science in general and medical science in particular. The deadly linkage between reactionary politics and rejection of science was obvious during the Covid pandemic.”
Krugman also implicates greed in the anti-vaccine movement, saying that “quack medicine is big business.”
“Right-wing radio and social media have long relied on peddlers of snake oil for a large part of their revenue. So much of the attack on medical science can be seen as financially motivated,” he writes.
Ideological willful ignorance plays a part as well — driven by the alliance between oligarchs and white Christian nationalism, the latter of which is “deeply hostile to Enlightenment values, modern science very much included.”
To prove his point, Krugman points to the widely-reported resurgence of measles, that was seen as eliminated from the United States decades ago, thanks to vaccines. Now, many parents are choosing to forego vaccinating their children against this highly contagious and potentially deadly disease.
He adds to that the refusal of many red states to expand Medicaid, a program largely paid for by the federal government under the Affordable Care Act.
The data bear him out. Life expectancy in “Trump-leaning” states trails blue states significantly.
There’s “a strong, clear negative correlation between Trump-leaning orientation and low life expectancy at the state level,” Krugman writes. “Deep red states like Alabama and West Virginia have life expectancy comparable to, say, Kazakhstan.”
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President Donald Trump’s choice to lead America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon who gained international attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for his opposition to vaccine mandates. On paper, Makary seems like a great choice for the job, but a conservative newspaper is reporting “soap opera”-level drama associated with his tenure.
“Has any Trump administration official caused more political headaches for the president than Marty Makary?” wrote Allysia Finley of The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “His Food and Drug Administration has turned into a soap opera, with real lives hanging in the balance.”
To illustrate this point, Finley described how "in public interviews, [Makary] boasts about accelerating access to gene therapies and rare-disease drugs, even as he and his deputies block them." Describing Makary as “slicker than a pharmaceutical salesman,” the Journal reporter observed that “my sources say that patience with Dr. Makary is wearing thin among Republicans in Congress and White House officials."
Since taking office, Makary has rejected rare-disease and cancer drugs, a gene therapy for Huntington’s Disease and various other medicines that had demonstrably improved or even saved lives. He has also been accused of allowing conflicts of interest to override his detached clinical judgment.
“Members of Congress are also investigating whistleblower complaints of retaliation by agency leadership against FDA staff who have recommended approvals of drugs with which Dr. Makary and his left-hand man, Vinay Prasad, disagreed,” Finley reported. “Dr. Prasad is a Bernie Sanders acolyte whom the commissioner tapped to lead the FDA’s biologics and gene-therapy division.”
Finley also quoted a Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, as saying that “the stories are so outrageous. It just appears that they're looking for excuses to say no." Johnson also reported rumors that the FDA has kept a “blacklist” of companies that “make too much noise.”
Finely concluded, "It's time for Mr. Trump to pull the plug on the Makary show."
Although not mentioned in her editorial, the FDA is also under fire for seeming to pull back from its responsibilities to protect food. Under Makary’s tenure, the FDA announced it would no longer engage in routine food inspections, describing that job as superfluous and instead arguing federal inspectors should offload all of those responsibilities to local authorities.
"There's so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just doesn't make sense," a former FDA official explained to CBS News at the time.
The FDA has also been criticized for incorrectly saying that COVID vaccines have caused child deaths, a policy that Dr. Celine Grounder of KFF Health News denounced for allegedly endangering the public.
“What is unfolding inside the FDA is not a narrow dispute over covid vaccines,” Grounder argued. “It is an attempt, according to critics and vaccine scientists, to rewrite the rules governing the entire U.S. vaccine system — how risks are weighed, how benefits are proved, and how quickly lifesaving shots reach the public.”
Grounder concluded, “Former agency leaders warn that if these changes take hold, the consequences could be lasting: fewer vaccines, slower updates, weakened public trust, and more preventable outbreaks.”
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On War Room, RFK Jr. ally claims “there’s no doubt that vaccines cause autism”
Written by Helena Hind
Published 11/20/25
An ally of Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed, “There's no doubt that vaccines cause autism,” on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast following news that the CDC had quietly updated its website with several statements that cast doubt on vaccine safety, including an assertion that “studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.”
The person who formerly led the agency’s center responsible for respiratory viruses and immunizations called out “the weaponization of the CDC voice by validating false claims"; indeed, numerous studies spanning decades of research have repeatedly debunked the supposed links between autism and vaccines.
Mary Holland is the CEO of Children’s Health Defense, theanti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy, and reportedly worked closely with Kennedy while he was head of CHD. Since Kennedy joined the Trump administration, Holland has consistently praised his autism and vaccine-related actions at HHS. Holland joined Bannon on Thursday to celebrate the CDC’s overnight reversal on vaccines and claim that “about eighty percent of the cases of autism are likely from vaccines.”
Video file
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From the November 20, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Mary Holland, it's air pollution. Easily refuted, ma'am. Your thoughts.
MARY HOLLAND (GUEST): This is such a — you know, it's a great, great clip of sort of what the mainstream is going to try to do. So, literally, for thirty years, literally hundreds of thousands of parents around the world have been reporting that their children drastically regress developmentally immediately after vaccines. And for, you know, thirty years, parents have been gaslit because of pressure from pharma and the government, because they've been pushing these shots and they're very lucrative. And, so, it is so wonderful that we now see the start of HHS and CDC telling the truth.
And, so, they haven't said, Steve, vaccines cause autism. They obviously think they need to have more science behind that to be able to say that. But what they are saying is that there's no science behind the claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' that the CDC's been making for decades and that they are now doing rigorous investigation of what are the causes of autism and that there are plausible biological mechanisms by which vaccines might be causing autism.
Between you and me, there's no doubt that vaccines cause autism, and we believe some of the recent studies show that about eighty percent of the cases of autism are likely from vaccines. That's not accepted yet, but that's what most of the recent study that we think is really valuable is showing.
Former CDC leaders have condemned the agency’s revisions, per The Washington Post:
The revisions show that the “CDC cannot currently be trusted as a scientific voice,” said Demetre Daskalakis, who formerly led the agency’s center responsible for respiratory viruses and immunizations. He was one of three senior leaders who resigned in August because of what they said was the politicization of science at the agency. “The weaponization of the CDC voice by validating false claims on official websites confirms what we have been saying,” he said.
…
“My question is how language that misrepresents decades of research ended up on a CDC website,” said Debra Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer who also resigned in August. “Public health communication must be accurate, evidence-based and free from political distortion. Anything less erodes trust and puts lives at risk.”
And numerous studies spanning decades of research have repeatedly examined and subsequently debunked the supposed links between autism and vaccines. As Matthew Herper wrote for STAT: “Scientists have responded to each of these arguments with many separate studies that both examined the mechanisms by which vaccines could allegedly cause autism and the broader question of whether children were more likely to develop autism if they had received vaccines. Again and again, the answer has been that they don’t.”
A statement from the Autism Science Foundation reaffirmed the evidence:
The science is clear that vaccines do not cause autism. No environmental factor has been better studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines. This includes vaccine ingredients as well as the body’s response to vaccines. All this research has determined that there is no link between autism and vaccines. This is consistent across multiple studies, repeated in different countries around the world, with different individuals, at different ages including infancy, and using different model systems.
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SARASOTA, Fla. — Florida plans to end nearly a half-century of required childhood immunizations against diseases that have killed and maimed millions of children. Many critics of the decision, including doctors, are afraid to speak up against it.
With the support of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Sept. 3 announced his plan to end all school-age vaccination mandates in the state.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he told a cheering crowd of vaccination foes in Tallahassee. “Who am I, as a government or anyone else,” he said, “to tell you what you should put in your body?”
History shows that mandates increase the use of vaccines. Lower vaccination rates will mean increased rates of diseases like measles, hepatitis, meningitis, and pneumonia — and even the return of diphtheria and polio. Many of these diseases threaten not just the unvaccinated but also those they come in contact with, including babies and older people with weakened immunity.
But that scientific fact is being left unsaid in Florida. Health officials have largely been silent in the face of Ladapo’s campaign — and not because they agree with him. The University of Florida muzzled infectious disease experts, said emeritus professor Doug Barrett, formerly the university’s chief of pediatrics and senior vice president for health affairs.
“They’re told not to speak to anyone without permission from supervisors,” he said. University spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment.
County-level Department of Health officials across the state got the same message, said John Sinnott, a retired professor at the University of South Florida who is friends with one of the county health leaders.
Sarasota County’s health department referred a reporter to state officials in Tallahassee, who responded with a statement that vaccines will “remain available” to families who want them. The state did not respond to other requests for comment or for an interview with Ladapo.
Many pediatricians are silent, too, at least in public.
“A lot of them don’t take a strong stance on whether kids need to be vaccinated,” said Neil Manimala, a urologist and the president-elect of the Hillsborough County Medical Association. “They don’t want to lose business. And there are enough anti-vax people who can lambaste you on Google, spreading stories about clinicians who ‘want to instill the poison jabs.’”
History of Modern Vaccine Mandates
Several states ended vaccination mandates early last century when smallpox was the only widely given vaccine, said historian Robert Johnston of the University of Illinois-Chicago. None has done so since other vaccines were added to the schedule. (Routine smallpox vaccination ended in 1972).
In the 1970s, persistent measles outbreaks provoked officials to strengthen child protection with enforced school mandates in every state. Today the partisan split on vaccine policy in the wake of the covid outbreak has changed the equation. This is nowhere more the case than in Florida, although legislators in Texas and Louisiana are also considering ending mandatory vaccination, and Idaho enables parents to get an exemption just by asking for it.
“This is really going to be a watershed moment for families who already were not sure they want to do vaccines and now are being told they don’t need them,” said Jennifer Takagishi, vice president of the Florida branch of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It’s hard to know how fast vaccine-preventable diseases might return if Florida ends its mandates — or how the public will respond. Asked
whether his office had modeled disease outcomes before his September announcement, Ladapo said “Absolutely not.” Parental freedom of choice isn’t a scientific matter, he said. “It’s an issue of right and wrong.”
Ladapo’s Department of Health did not respond a month later when asked whether it was making contingency plans for outbreaks. During a 2024 measles outbreak in Broward County, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school, defying the science-supported advice from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 1977, a measles epidemic that killed two children in Los Angeles County spurred a dramatic crackdown on vaccine-shunning across the country. But during an epidemic this year that killed two Texas children and 14 people in Mexico, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill making it easier for parents to opt out of getting required shots.
“When are we going to have enough of a groundswell of people dying or becoming severely ill that leads people to push back and say, ‘No, no, we want the vaccines?’” Takagishi said. “I don’t know if we know the tipping point yet.”
“I don’t have the answer,” said Emory University emeritus professor Walter Orenstein, who worked on measles for many of his 26 years at the CDC and led the agency’s immunization program from 1988 to 2004. “Measles resurgences created the political will to support our overall immunization program. For some reason it hasn’t worked this time. It’s just sad.”
Youngsters in Florida are already among the least vaccinated in the nation, because of relatively lax enforcement, the post-covid backlash against shots, and the libertarian attitude of state officials. Statewide, only about 89% of kindergartners are fully vaccinated, with Sarasota County having the lowest rate, at about 80%. To be safe from the spread of measles, a community must be 95% immunized.
With Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cutting vaccine research, filling the health agency with anti-vaccine activists and spreading doubt about vaccination’s safety and value, little stands in the way of decisions by Florida officials that are likely to cause rates to sink further.
Ladapo’s department is ending mandates for shots against hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Early next year, the Florida Legislature is expected to take up reversal of a 1977 law requiring kids at school and day care to be vaccinated against seven other diseases that can kill children: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.
After Measles, Which Disease Returns Next?
In the face of these attacks, scientists are attempting to predict which diseases are likely to make a resurgence and when.
A study published in April by Stanford epidemiologist Mathew Kiang and colleagues estimated that even at current vaccination levels, measles, declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, is likely to become a routine illness again. If measles vaccination rates drop by an additional 10%, there could be an average of about 450,000 cases yearly, with hundreds of deaths and cases of brain damage.
But the study may exaggerate the threat, said Shaun Truelove, an epidemic disease modeler at Johns Hopkins University who said he’s worried about losing public trust with alarmist predictions. Still, he said, an intensification of measles outbreaks seems certain. The country is already in the midst of its worst measles year in three decades, with more than 1,500 cases and current outbreaks in South Carolina and Minnesota.
“You don’t really need to model measles if vaccines stop,” Truelove said. “In the pockets where there are outbreaks, every kid who isn’t vaccinated will get infected.”
Measles is the “canary in the coal mine” for other vaccine-preventable diseases, said Sal Anzalone, a pediatrician with Healthcare Network in Naples, Florida. “When you start seeing measles, there’s more to come behind that.”
People who want vaccinations will still be able to get them if mandates are eliminated, Ladapo has said.
But the state’s message confuses parents, especially the poor and underserved, Anzalone said. It’s typically hard for them to get children to appointments unless they have to, he said, noting that 80% of his patients are insured through Medicaid. If policies put more of the payment burden on parents, fewer will vaccinate, he said.
And if vaccinations fall and infections increase, children won’t be the only people affected. Cancer patients and people in Florida’s numerous elderly communities would be at risk. Schools and businesses would be disrupted. Disease could disrupt the tourism industry, which brought 143 million people to the state last year. (The Florida Chamber of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.)
“Infectious diseases don’t stop with the people who say they are willing to bear the risk,” said Meagan Fitzpatrick, a University of Maryland vaccinologist. Because of their unpredictable spread, she said, “with an infectious disease, vaccination is never an individual choice.”
Clinicians fear that an end to mandates could allow hepatitis B, a chronic liver disease, to return with force, since an estimated 2 million Americans carry the virus. They also foresee a return to the days when infants with high fever had to undergo a painful and risky lumbar puncture and blood draw to rule out meningitis, as well as a blood infection caused by the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae type B that routine vaccination has prevented since the 1990s.
Barbara Loe Fisher, who co-founded the modern movement against vaccine mandates in the early 1980s after her son suffered a reaction to the pertussis vaccine then in use (and since replaced with a safer shot), is skeptical that Floridians will abandon vaccination en masse, despite the end to mandates.
Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, moved from Virginia to southwestern Florida in 2020. She said she believes that vaccine injuries are undercounted and that children are vaccinated without informed consent. She acknowledged that mandates have increased coverage but said their removal will increase trust in public health and medicine.
“It is time to allow biological products like vaccines to be subject to the law of supply and demand,” she said, “just like any other product sold in the marketplace.”
Sinnott, for his part, anticipates measles will come roaring back, along with intensified whooping cough, influenza, and covid outbreaks.
“They think nothing will happen. Maybe they’re right,” said Sinnott, the retired professor. “It’s an experiment.”
Polio could return, and that is not an abstraction for Sinnott, 77.
He was 7 years old when he contracted the disease, spending six months in a wheelchair. In recent years he’s suffered from post-polio syndrome — difficulty swallowing, and tightness and pain in his limbs.
The first polio vaccine was licensed in 1955, the year he got sick. “I remember one time my mother telling me, ‘The line was too long,’” he said.
Sinnott forgives his parents, and parents today who waver on vaccination. He’s less tolerant of certain public health leaders. They should know better, he said.
*KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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PROJECTION CONTEXT
MMA
October 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five
JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): It's a lot of conspiracy theories with the left. They're constantly hooked on these conspiracy theories like the COVID came from a wet market. I mean, they take Chinese propaganda and then they just regurgitate it on national television or that Trump is some sort of Russian puppet. They did that for two years. These people are like not in touch with reality at all. And this is coming from me. I like conspiracy theories. I seek them out and they're usually right. And they're usually -- the dumb ones are coming from the left.
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AN 9 25
As the debate over vaccine mandates heats up in Florida, there’s a push in the Legislature and the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to broaden the use of ivermectin.
A Republican legislator from Spring Hill has filed legislation to allow the over-the-counter sale of ivermectin suitable for human use even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals.
Ivermectin is an effective treatment for parasites in animals and for use by humans to treat parasites such as head lice and scabies, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The FDA has not approvedIvermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19, and so far recommends against taking it for COVID-19, instead suggesting people get vaccinated for protection.
Nevertheless, there was buzz during the pandemic about using it for treatment for COVID-19.
HB 29 sponsor Rep. Jeff Holcomb, R-Spring Hill, did not immediately return Florida Phoenix’s request for comment. If approved, Florida would join the ranks of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Idaho, and Texas in approving the medication for over the counter sales.
The governor, First Lady Casey DeSantis, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, and Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris held a press conference at the University of South Florida Health College of Medicine to recognize World Cancer Research Day and to highlight $60 million in new cancer research grant opportunities.
There, the first lady said she expected some portion of the new grant funding to be used for cancer research on ivermectin.
“I know we should look at it. I know we should look at the benefits of it. We shouldn’t just speculate and guess,” DeSantis said.
Ladapo, seconded the idea.
“There’s been a lot of chatter about it, and this very simple drug that happens to be very safe, by the way, has unfortunately, you know it’s so much it’s been weighed down by all this politics, especially during the Biden administration.”
Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for cancer treatment.
The FDA also warns large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous. “Even doses of ivermectin for approved human uses can interact with other medications, like blood-thinners. You can also overdose on ivermectin, which can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension (low blood pressure), allergic reactions (itching and hives), dizziness, ataxia (problems with balance), seizures, coma, and even death.”
Ladapo and DeSantis defend no mandate push
Meanwhile, Ladapo and his boss DeSantis defended their push to eliminate vaccine mandates from Florida law, rules, and regulations.
“I hope that we continue to reject the normal and we pursue a path that feels righteous, that feels like we’re actually, you know, aiming toward the thing that we want to improve,” Ladapo said.
“That opportunity is there. Thankfully, we have leadership, uniquely in this state, to do it. And I hope it spreads like, like all those minor viruses that my critics are afraid of, or something.”
The minor viruses Ladapo referred to includes measles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 1,514 confirmed measles cases this year as of Sept. 23. Six of those confirmed cases were in Florida. There were 11 confirmed measles cases in Florida in 2024.
Measles and other disease outbreaks occur as the percentage of school-age children in Florida who are vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella dips. While the target rate for MMR vaccination is 95%, Florida’s 2024-2025 rate was 88.8%.
That’s a near 5% point change from the 2019-2020 year, aKFF analysis shows, and well below the targeted 95% needed for herd immunity.
Ladapo and DeSantis avoided directly answering whether their children have been vaccinated. Ladapo said reporters should be asking substantive questions and likened the questions about the children to “silly games.”
“I actually don’t care about sharing information about that. I really don’t care at all. But I won’t. And I won’t because I’m not going to participate in the silly games that so much of the media chooses to partake in instead of the substantive parts of the issues.”
In addition to defending his anti-vaccine mandate push, Ladapo appears on board with the Trump administration’s announcement that autism rates are up because pregnant women are taking acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, during their pregnancies.
“They acknowledge that not all the studies show harm, but some of them do show relation. And it’s not a total explanation for autism by any means, but it does appear to be that it’s reasonable to conclude that it may be contributing to the prevalence of autism in children,” Ladapo said.
When asked whether he intended to issue any guidance he said: “We’re still looking at it. So, we may have some more guidance, but it would probably be very much in line with where the FDA is.”
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Right-wing media and MAHA figures are celebrating Trump’s Tylenol announcement and pushing unproven claims that vaccines cause autism
Some right-wing media figures celebrated the announcement while others pivoted to claim that “Tylenol is not what’s driving this epidemic” and vaccines are “the primary driver”
Written by Jack Winstanley & Payton Armstrong
Research contributions from Helena Hind & Gideon Taaffe
Published 09/26/25
President Donald Trump’s promotion of an unproven connection between the use of Tylenol during pregnancy and autism has drawn widespread rebuke from world health officials and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, even as right-wing influencers cheered the news, declaring that “what was once dismissed as ‘conspiracy’ is now official policy discussion” in the Trump White House.
Right-wing media personalities and “Make America Healthy Again” acolytes have bolstered the HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-created movement to exploit post-pandemic mistrust of public health infrastructure and pharmaceutical companies. Now, they are celebrating the president’s announcement as “incredibly bold” and the “most decisive action that could be taken.” Others highlighted Trump’s comments about vaccines, with some declaring that “Tylenol is not what’s driving this epidemic” and claiming that vaccines are “the primary driver.”
Trump announced the FDA will notify doctors that the use of Tylenol during pregnancy is linked to autism, leading OB-GYNs to denounce the policy as “not backed by the full body of scientific evidence”}:
- On September 22, Trump pushed an unproven causal connection between autism and the use of Tylenol (also known as acetaminophen or paracetamol) during pregnancy. In a press conference, Trump thanked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has a long history of promoting discredited theories about vaccines causing autism — for bringing the subject to the “forefront of American politics, along with me,” adding, “We understood a lot more than a lot of people who studied it.” CNN, [9/22/25;The Guardian, 9/24/25]
- World health officials have rejected Trump’s claim that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes autism. The European Medicines Agency told NBC that “a large amount of data from pregnant women who used paracetamol during pregnancy indicates no risk of malformations on the developing fetus or on newborns.” Australian health officials also rejected the claims, saying they are “a misrepresentation of the science.” NBC News, [9/23/25]
- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — a group that represents more than 60,000 doctors — rebuked Trump’s announcement and called it “irresponsible” and “not backed by the full body of scientific evidence.” The group’s president, Dr. Steven Fleischman, said in a statement: “Today’s announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children,” adding, “it is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data.” PBS, [9/22/25; American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, accessed 9/24/25]
- Discussing vaccines during the press conference, Trump also said, “Don’t let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you've ever seen in your life.” However, studies have shown no causal link between vaccines and autism, and “over the last 50 years, it is estimated that essential vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives,” according to UNICEF USA president and CEO Michael J. Nyenhuis. Reuters, [9/23/23; NPR, 9/23/25]
- ## Some right-wing and MAHA media figures praised and endorsed Trump’s press conference connecting Tylenol to autism
- Ahead of the press conference, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles claimed Trump “has apparently cured autism.”Knowles said that Trump’s announcement was “another feather in the cap” for the administration, which he claimed has “achieved some of the greatest scientific progress in our lifetimes.” The Daily Wire, *The Michael Knowles Show*, [9/22/25]
- On Steve Bannon’sWar Room, MAHA Action President Tony Lyons declared: “I don’t think you can look at what happened today and think that it was anything short of the boldest and most decisive action that could be taken.” He added: “They see that the science done for the last 20 or 30 years has been fake corporate science, and so we are getting gold standard science, total transparency, and we’re going to make progress. And there are dozens of possibilities for all of the different chronic diseases, and they’re going to do research into every last one of them.” In July, The Hill reported that Lyons’ group “has launched a six-figure ad campaign backing President Trump” and Kennedy’s MAHA agenda. Twitter/X, [9/22/25; The Hill, 7/22/25]
- Podcaster and Kennedy 2024 running mate Nicole Shanahan: “Today was incredibly bold. @POTUS you have exceeded my expectations in truth telling.”She added, “Keep it up, team! This is only the beginning.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25; Politico, 5/11/24; BlazeTV, accessed 9/24/25]
- Actor Rob Schneider said, “This incredible and courageous and important news conference would have NEVER happened if President Trump was not elected.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25; Entertainment Weekly, 10/1/24]
- Infowars host Alex Jones shared footage of Trump’s press conference and wrote: “Tylenol and so-called ‘vaccines’ eat your brain and liver.” Twitter/X, [9/23/25]
- Podcaster Sherri Tenpenny, an ally of Kennedy who has pushed false claims about vaccines, praised the announcement: “What was once dismissed as ‘conspiracy’ is now official policy discussion. The truth always surfaces.” Tenpenny became well-known after she falsely claimed during a 2021 hearing in Ohio that the COVID-19 vaccine makes people “magnetized.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25; DrTenpenny.com, accessed 9/24/25; Media Matters, 7/19/23; PolitiFact, accessed 9/24/25; Agence France-Presse, 3/3/25]
- Turning Point USA’s Alex Clark praised Trump for tying Tylenol to autism, writing “We finally have a president that says: ‘I BELIEVE MOTHERS.’” Clark continued, “The most recent studies link Tylenol to autism, and we know that the current vaccine schedule is not helping. President Trump LOVES AND SUPPORTS WOMEN enough to not gaslight them—something the medical establishment REFUSES to do.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25]
- On Newsmax, host Chris Plante said that “since the Democrats are so angrily denouncing it and they're wrong about everything, it's probably more likely to be true.” Newsmax, *Chris Plante: Right Squad*, [9/22/25]
- After the announcement, Newsmax host Carl Higbie claimed that “Libs are now pro-autism.” Higbie also stated, “It just seems to me like people who don't like Trump will just do anything to oppose him,” claiming that “pregnant women are posting taking acetaminophen products while pregnant.” During the segment, an on-air graphic read “Libs claim autism ‘doesn’t need to be cured.’” Newsmax, *Carl Higbie Frontline*, [9/23/25]
- ## Others highlighted Trump’s comments about vaccines, suggesting they are "the primary driver”
- Alex Jones: “They're going to say it's Tylenol and pesticides but not be specific. … But the main thing is the so-called vaccines.” Jones also said that “on the off chance that they cover it up, I will go to complete war with the administration.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*, [9/22/25]
- During an interview onWar Room, Mary Holland, CEO of Kennedy-founded Children’s Health Defense, said: “We know Tylenol is not what’s driving this epidemic. … Vaccines are driving this epidemic.” Host Steve Bannon added: “This Tylenol thing stinks to high heaven. Not the fact that Tylenol causes it, but to do it today and then you’re never going to see a report, it’s just going to kind of fade into memory.” Holland noted that she’s worked with Kennedy for “many years” and repeated that “vaccines are the primary cause.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [9/22/25; Politico, 1/29/25]
- MAHA Action Editor-in-Chief Tracy “Beanz” Diaz, whom NOTUS also described as “a podcaster, YouTuber and writer” and “one of the earliest promoters of the QAnon movement,” said: “It’s the vaccines. There’s my opinion. It isn’t Tylenol.” Diaz, who was hired by MAHA Action in March, reportedly “pushed vaccine skepticism and advocated for the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19” during the pandemic. Twitter/X, [9/22/25; NOTUS, 3/11/25]
- Podcaster Thomas Renz, who reportedly “boosted his profile with lawsuits challenging coronavirus vaccines,” said that “Tylenol was made over the counter in 1959. Autism exploded as the childhood vaccine schedule grew. Tylenol isn’t good but vaccines are the root problem.” Twitter/X, [9/23/25; The Washington Post, 9/20/21, Substack, accessed 9/24/25]
- Podcaster Peter McCullough, who pushed false claims about vaccines and promoted debunked treatments for COVID-19 during appearances on Fox in 2021, complained, “The pathway to developmental regression begins with vaccines, not acetaminophen.” He added: “A leading cause of Tylenol use during pregnancy is maternal vaccination that started about 25 years ago. Systemic inflammation and the reason why Tylenol is indicated (eg post combination vaccination) is the real driver of encephalitis, and the post-encephalitic state of autism.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25; America Out Loud Network, 9/24/25; Media Matters, 12/30/21; MSNBC, 6/8/25]
- On Instagram, Moms Across America, which CNN described as a “grassroots network” founded by a North Carolina mom “cheering for RFK Jr. to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’” posted a graphic that read, “Tylenol adds the fuel, but vaccines strike the match.” Instagram, [9/23/25; CNN, 12/12/24]
- Sherri Tenpenny stated that “vaccines are — and always have been — the primary driver of autism.”She added, “Tylenol doesn’t replace that reality, it compounds it. … This is not about either/or. It’s about exposing the entire toxic system that has harmed our children for decades.” Twitter/X, [9/22/25]
- OnWar Room, Toby Rogers, whom Politico has described as “a prominent anti-vaccine activist,” celebrated that Trump went after vaccines, calling his comments the “best case scenario.” Rogers said: “Yesterday was historic. We thought it was just going to be about Tylenol and instead, President Trump went all-in, and he made it very clear that he wants to make major changes to the childhood vaccine schedule to stop the autism epidemic.” These comments follow Rogers' testimony before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, claiming that “after conducting my systematic review of 1,000 studies my belief is that the autism and chronic disease epidemics are primarily caused by toxicants — mostly from vaccines and about a dozen additional toxicants.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [9/23/25; Politico, 9/23/25; Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, 9/9/25]
MMA //
09/18/25 3:52 PM EDT
07/09/25 12:07 PM EDT
09/17/25
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mma
TikTok Shop is selling supplements made by Plandemic filmmaker
For $29 on TikTok, you can buy a supplement to “bulletproof your immune system” and “surround it with piranhas” from a company that pushes medical misinformation
Written by Abbie Richards
Research contributions from Alex Kaplan
:{:{Published 09/25/25}:
On TikTok Shop, users can now purchase a supplement that will purportedly “bulletproof your immune system.” The product was “founded” by a group that includes Mikki Willis, who has falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” and said he has been “working with” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Willis is also known for creating the viral film Plandemic, which pushed conspiracy theories about COVID-19.
TikTok Shop’s policies prohibit the sale of “medicinal supplements,” including “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” But that isn’t stopping the creators of Fierce Immunity from selling their supplement on the platform and suggesting that people who take it “don’t get sick.”
Fierce Immunity is a supplement claiming to “supercharge your immune system”
Fierce Immunity is billed as “a synergistic blend of bioactive compounds, precision-engineered to supercharge your immune system” and “a powerful blend of Vitamin D, Zinc Ascorbate, Quercetin, Hesperidin, and L-Arginine designed to fortify your immune system, reduce inflammation, and support rapid recovery.”
The supplement was created by a group that includes medical misinformers, and it was reportedly formulated with an “AI technology,” known as Swarm Intelligence. Fierce Immunity is also the first item listed in parent company Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol.” As part of the protocol, Rebel Lion claims Fierce Immunity works as “both prevention and response in times of viral threat.”
Health care experts have said that while some people can benefit from a vitamin D supplement, most people do not need vitamin D supplements because they get sufficient vitamin D from their diet and lifestyle. And while zinc plays a role in immune health, supplements are usually necessary only for people with zinc deficiency. In fact, some experts say excessive zinc levels can actually be “dangerous to your health.”
In small print, Fierce Immunity's website admits, “Fierce Immunity is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. … You should not use the information contained herein for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication.”
Rebel Lion is selling and promoting Fierce Immunity on TikTok
Rebel Lion is selling Fierce Immunity on TikTok Shop, even though the platform prohibits the sale of “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” In fact, the company is selling the product on the platform at half of its usual price of $58 a bottle.
On its TikTok account, Rebel Lion has posted videos of people making some bold claims about Fierce Immunity, such as saying it will “bulletproof your immune system” and “lock it down, supercharge it, and surround it with piranhas,” “It shields my immunity. I don’t get sick,” and “Two years ago I began taking Fierce Immunity … and in that two years, I haven’t been sick, not even a sniffle.” In another video, a man is repeatedly hitting a tire in a gym with a voiceover saying, “After six weeks of constant gut issues, I tried Fierce Immunity and in just two days, my discomfort vanished.”
In Rebel Lion webinars on YouTube, the commentary about Fierce Immunity gets even wilder. In a webinar dedicated to the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak,” Rebel Lion co-founder Chris Roy said that “nobody that I know that’s taking Fierce Immunity is getting sick.” Roy also claimed that his friend’s sister “had breast cancer — stage four — and started taking Fierce Immunity and within about a month they said her tumors are shrinking.”
Fierce Immunity is being sold by a company led by medical misinformers
According to Rebel Lion's website, Fierce Immunity was “founded by Mikki Willis, Chris Roy, and JP Sears.” Willis and Sears both have histories of spreading medical misinformation.
Willis is the creator of the viral film Plandemic, which Wired reported was a “widely debunked pseudo-documentary” that “suggested Covid-19 was released to profit those in positions of authority and that vaccines were ineffectual.” During Rebel Lion's “The Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, he falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” that has “been manipulated and targeted towards a community that is a threat because of their natural way of living.” In February, Willis also claimed that he had “been working with RFK Jr.” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “for over a decade.”
Willis is still sowing doubt and mistrust around the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. During the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis encouraged viewers to share an upcoming video with their friends and family who still trust vaccines and linked his father’s heart issues to vaccines:
MIKKI WILLIS: I was getting calls from these people that were severely injured. They were the first ones to line up for the COVID-19 vaccines. And they were manipulated and coerced into doing that for whatever reason. We’ve been following them on their journey of healing for the past four years. They went from perfectly healthy to confined to a wheelchair, having to have breathing apparatuses just so they can breathe, to having seizures every 30 minutes, some of them severely injured from being perfectly healthy.
And so we’ve witnessed that firsthand. And that movie, when it comes out, share it like crazy because I have been saying, that’s the movie that ends the debate. If you have family members, friends, whoever it is that are still in denial just because maybe they got vaccinated and they’re OK, which, thank God, so many people are. My father and mother-in-law both, I don’t know, two or three vaccines — they’re fine. My father, three vaccines, three heart attacks — I just put him in hospice care.
In the description of the “ Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Rebel Lion describes the video as an “urgent discussion … unpacking the latest measles outbreak in Texas and exposing what mainstream media refuses to report,” including questions like “Is this a mutated bioweapon?” and “Are vaccinated individuals more vulnerable?”
Journalists have described Sears as a “conservative, anti-vaccine comic” and “the clown prince of wellness.” In his comedy sketches, Sears has implied that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 boosters are intended to depopulate the world, and that mRNA vaccines are ineffective.
Roy, who owns the “Rebel Lion” trademark, doesn’t seem to have a significant history as a public persona online. Instead, he seems to bring the marketing expertise to the Rebel Lion project.
In May, Rebel Lion released a film that featured Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett, who have downplayed the threat of measles, and Pierre Kory, whose certification was revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine for his promotion of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.
Edwards reportedly treated measles patients in Texas, including children, with cod liver oil while reportedly having an active measles infection himself.
Bartlett has suggested that the measles vaccine could cause measles and that reporting on the rise in measles is a “misinformation, disinformation campaign to character-assassinate RFK and the Make America Healthy Again movement.” During the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Willis asked Bartlett: “Should we stop all measles vaccines and let children get natural immunity?” Bartlett didn’t seem to answer the answer directly, but he said: “Parents deserve to know all the information. … We’re supposed to as doctors give informed consent. As far as vaccines, it’s again an individual decision. Traditional vaccines made with a live virus or a live weakened virus make sense to me. But there’s a risk. They’re live measles viruses. Live measles viruses cause measles.” He added that “every risk of measles can happen with the MR vaccine. And you’re not gonna hear that on CNN.”
During the May film, Kory argued that “measles is essentially just a rash. It was one of the most common childhood illnesses. It’s not lethal by any stretch of the imagination. Over 90% of kids with measles will suffer no complications. And the few that do, those complications are easily treatable.”
The Centers for Disease Control has been clear: Measles “isn't just a little rash.” In fact, the CDC says that 1 in 5 people who get measles will be hospitalized, and 1 in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia, which is “the most common cause of death from measles in young children.” A 2024 study also estimated that measles vaccines averted over 60 million deaths between 2000 and 2023.
Medical misinformers often sow doubt around vaccines and then profit from anxious consumers
Fierce Immunity offers something of a window into a larger industry in which grifters profit off fear and medical misinformation, seeding distrust in lifesaving vaccines while simultaneously selling bogus solutions.
Immediately after stoking fear about COVID-19 vaccines in the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis said, “This is why we created Fierce Immunity.” Roy added that when measles started breaking out, “that was the beginning of the conversation — was we were getting so many people asking us what they should do, what they should take, how should they build their immune system. Because we know … it all starts with the immune system.”
This sort of approach is also seen elsewhere in the medical misinformation space. For instance, a 2024 study from the University of Washington documented how wellness influencers leveraged anti-vaccine messaging for profit, using it to sell products including heavy metal detox sprays and supplements, homeschooling resources, and “off-grid” supplies. And during the pandemic, right-wing media figures and anti-vaccine activists peddled ivermectin as a miracle drug, even though it is ineffective at treating COVID-19.
Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol” also includes Budesonide, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has said is “not a recommended nor effective treatment for measles,” and an “antimicrobial oral rinse that reduces viral and bacterial load in the mouth.”
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TikTok Shop is selling black market Ozempic, performance enhancement drugs, and cosmetic filler
10/22/24 2:04 PM EDT
06/27/25 10:02 AM EDT
09/09/25
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rfk looks bad in senate hearings 9 25 on msnbc yt anyway
mma
How right-wing media sow distrust and confusion around vaccines and science
As Florida ends school vaccine requirements and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership comes under fire, the right has repackaged anti-science talking points as well-meaning skepticism
Written by Gideon Taaffe, Isabella Sherk, Jack Wheatley & Jack Winstanley
Published 09/18/25
Amid the rise of the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement, right-wing media figures have employed a variety of tactics that sow doubt and confusion around vaccine efficacy and science more broadly. These efforts to capitalize on existing distrust of public health institutions and pharmaceutical companies have gained renewed momentum following Florida’s elimination of vaccine requirements for schools and comments made by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a contentious Senate hearing.
MAHA acolytes have challenged well-studied topics by “just asking questions,” described vaccination requirements as impediments to freedom and parental choice, and exploited post-pandemic mistrust of public health infrastructure and pharmaceutical companies.
The MAHA movement is fueling mistrust in medicine amid a CDC leadership shake-up and Florida's elimination of vaccine requirements
- In early September, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced the state is working to eliminate all vaccine requirements for children in public schools, an announcement which quickly came under fire by doctors and public health experts. In his statement to the public, Ladapo said of vaccines, “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” The American Medical Association released a statement opposing the move, stating: “This unprecedented rollback would undermine decades of public health progress and place children and communities at increased risk for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox resulting in serious illness, disability, and even death.” NBC News, [9/3/25; The American Medical Association, 9/3/25]
- After the firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced scrutiny from both sides of the aisle at a contentious Senate hearing where many called for his resignation.Monarez’s firing spurred other top CDC officials to step down and caution the public over the state of the organization’s scientific independence. This, along with criticism for canceling $500 million in funding for mRNA research that produced the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine, contributed to a dramatic hearing where senators sparred with Kennedy. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted for Kennedy’s confirmation, said the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation that only people at high risk for complications and those over 65 need the vaccine effectively denies people access to the shot. NPR, [9/4/25; BBC News, 8/5/25; CBS News,8/28/25]
- At a September 17 Senate hearing, Monarez testified that Kennedy had told her “that the ‘childhood vaccine schedule would be changing starting in September’ and that she ‘needed to be on board with it.’” According to NPR, Monarez told the senators that Kennedy “just wanted blanket approval” adding, “Even under pressure, I could not replace evidence with ideology.” NPR, [9/17/25]
- The New York Times used AI to analyze 38 MAHA figures and organizations featured in around 12,000 videos and podcasts, concluding that these influencers amplify frustration with the health care system to reel viewers in “using wellness content as a trojan horse for conspiracy theories.” The Times noted that some of these figures are using these platforms to sell a product rather than to meaningfully address public health problems like poverty or lack of access to nutritious food and health care. One interviewee who got pulled down the MAHA rabbit hole said, “I thought if my daughter got vaccinated, she would die in her sleep that night.” The New York Times, [9/9/25]
- ## Tactic 1: “Just asking questions” about established science as a means to sow doubt
- Right-wing media figures have presented uninformed, speculative questions about the safety of vaccines as legitimate criticism of the science, saying there’s nothing wrong with “wanting to ask questions” and often presenting their own queries as evidence that established bodies of research should be approached skeptically. In an essay for Big Think, Warren Berger argued that people falsely equate “questioning with critical thinking” and added that conspiracy theorists “act as if their uninformed, speculative questions demand that someone else provide answers.” Kelly Weirich, professor of philosophy at Pierce College, also stated that “while questions technically don’t make claims, they do affirm claims in a subtler way through the assumptions embedded in them.” University of Dayton lecturer Megan Donelson noted that the right’s tactic of “just asking questions” in this way “serves to undermine public trust in science and medicine.”
- Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones attacked Democrats questioning Kennedy, saying, “I guess the most frustrating thing about the entire hearing is there seems to be zero curiosity on why we're such a sick nation.” Jones continued, “I do have some genuine curiosity about the science about each vaccine. And it didn't seem like they were trying to get to the bottom of that or even hear him out.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/5/25]
- Fox & Friendsco-host Brian Kilmeade asked, “When do you give the vaccines? Are you giving them all at once? Does that play into autism?” He claimed that in a few weeks, Kennedy “will announce the cause of autism, or the likely cause, which I think is extremely beneficial for us.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/5/25]
- Jones later said that “there is something wrong with some of the vaccines,” adding that “not all of them are bad, but there are questions that Americans have about it.” He continued, “They should be able to give us answers. But we're not conducting our own studies. We depend on foreign people to do the studies, and there’s questions there.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/8/25]
- OnThe Five, co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery claimed, “I disagree with him [Kennedy] on a lot of stuff but at least he makes me think about vaccines.” She added, “I think that is the best thing we can do as a society. And have these honest discussions about how we look and what we are putting in our bodies, and the solutions we are giving our children when we are failing them — when all of these institutions are failing them.” Fox News, *The Five*, [9/4/25]
- Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she doesn’t agree with everything Kennedy says but likes his “healthy skepticism for the science, wanting to ask questions about your children, what we are putting in their bodies.” Fox News, *The Five*, [9/5/25]
- Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked MAHA podcaster Gary Brecka, “Are we overprescribing generally as a society and overvaccinating?” Brecka responded, “We are the most over-medicalized nation in the world,” describing the U.S. as “the sickest, fattest, most disease-ridden nation in the world.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [9/4/25]
- Newsmax host Rob Finnerty asked if it's possible that former President Joe Biden is “vaccine-injured” and suggested vaccination caused his cancer. Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [9/2/25]
- Fox News host Laura Ingraham noted that “Kennedy and others have raised questions about the number of new vaccines added to the recommended pediatric schedule.” Citing the supposedly “staggering” increase in recommended vaccinations, Ingraham argued that it “makes total sense” to change COVID vaccine approvals. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [9/4/25]
- ## Tactic 2: Presenting vaccine requirements as impediments to freedom and parental choice
- Criticisms against public health policy surged at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rhetoric equating vaccine mandates to government overreach has persisted within the right-wing media ecosystem. The Nations Health, an outlet of the American Public Health Association, has highlighted several recent examples of the “medical freedom movement” undermining public health by removing fluoride from tap water and promoting alternative medicines. Additionally, the new CDC recommendations will make it more difficult for those who wish to get vaccinated for COVID-19, as the vaccines may no longer be covered by insurance companies.
- On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity celebrated the Florida mandate rescission, which he claimed was “giving people freedom and giving people choice, which I think is great.” Premiere Radio Network, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [9/4/25]
- Hannity: “Masks may be coming back to California while the free state of Florida is moving to end draconian vaccine mandates for your children in school.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [9/4/25]
- Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson wrote that “vaccine mandates are wrong” and “Florida is absolutely right to remove them,” adding, “Parents should have the final say over kids’ health, not the government.” Twitter/X, [9/4/25]
- Dr. Simone Gold, an anti-vaccine activist and January 6 participant, celebrated the FDA’s move to end Emergency Use Authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine, stating, “Mandates are dead. Freedom wins.” Twitter/X, [8/27/25, ABC News, 6/12/22]
- Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt emphasized parental choice while talking about COVID vaccines, saying, “As a mom, I’m going to decide what my child gets.”Earhardt: “There were a handful of us that didn't want our kids to have the COVID vaccine. That was my choice as a mom, because we interviewed so many kids — the kid who played soccer out on Long Island, who fell and had a heart problem, can’t play anymore, and his parents thought it was because of the vaccine. I just heard so many stories like that, I made the decision for myself.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/5/25]
- ## Tactic 3: Exploiting distrust of public health organizations, experts, and pharmaceutical manufacturers
- The MAHA movement and Kennedy — who according to NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin “seems to assume bad intent among experts” and who has accused public health agencies of “deliberately manipulating the truth” — have seized on a wider sense of mistrust and confusion following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report from Politico, “An increasing number of families are projecting their attitudes toward the Covid-19 vaccine onto shots for measles, chickenpox, meningitis and other diseases,” and “parents who were hesitant to vaccinate their children before the pandemic have now been joined by people who think the government mishandled the crisis.” Now, despite evidence suggesting that the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives, Kennedy and his MAHA acolytes are exploiting this distrust in public health institutions to appeal to a base that “felt angered by a lot of early pandemic policies” and “felt betrayed by the government.”
- Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier claimed, “The CDC lost all credibility throughout the COVID pandemic when they continued to universally recommend the COVID vaccine, even after the science changed.” She continued, “The problem here we have is that all of these vaccines are being lumped as though that they are created equally and they have the same benefit, and the reality is that's not true. So while removing all vaccine mandates for school-aged children is swinging that pendulum from one extreme to the other extreme, truly Americans — and especially our children — deserve more of a nuanced discussion about this.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [9/4/25]
- Right-wing podcaster Liz Wheeler wrote that fewer people now believe the government should “forcibly vaxx kids” because “70+ shots added to the schedule, an insane epidemic of autism, ADHD, cancer, neurological issues, & autoimmune diseases among CHILDREN.” She continued, “A generation of children have been hurt, and we all know it. If you think Bobby Kennedy doesn’t have America’s support, you’re crazy.” Twitter/X, [9/4/25]
- Wheeler reposted a video of Kennedy onFox & Friendsclaiming the CDC was hiding vaccine safety data from him. She wrote, “I wonder why?” Twitter/X, [9/7/25]
- The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles claimed the CDC “lost their credibility during COVID,” adding, “They lied to us about vaccines.” He continued, “They lied to us about the efficacy of the vaccine. They lied to us about the safety of the vaccine. They lied to us about everything regarding the vaccine.” The Daily Wire, *The Michael Knowles Show*, [9/2/25]
- Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty claimed, “Hundreds of millions of people were forced to get the vaccine” during the COVID pandemic, adding, “People have had adverse reactions to this vaccine we were told was safe that was forced upon us.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [9/4/25]
- TownHall writer Scott Morefield shared a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump in which he asked pharmaceutical companies to “justify the success of their various Covid Drugs,” adding, “This kind of spotlight on the efficacy of the mRNA jabs could cause the whole house of cards to come crashing down.” Morefield celebrated Trump’s post, stating, “I didn’t think Trump’s ego would ever allow him to do this, but he continues to pleasantly surprise me,” and ending with “Bravo!” Twitter/X, [9/1/25]
- Fox News host Jesse Watters questioned the vaccine recommendations for children, saying the “people at the CDC recommending it are at the CDC because the vaccine industry put them there,” and he accused senators of “blindly defending vaccine companies like it's their job.” Watters: “Why does a baby get 18 shots before they are 18 months old? It used to be eight — now it's 18. Why does a kid have 76 shots before they are old enough to vote? We never used to get that many, but the CDC recommends this. And the people at the CDC recommending it are at the CDC because the vaccine industry put them there. Maybe 76 is the right amount. Maybe it could be a little less or a lot less. We don't know. RFK is just trying to get a fresh set of eyes on it and look at the data. And senators are blindly defending vaccine companies like it's their job.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/4/25]
- Watters suggested that people advocating for vaccinations are doing so to keep getting “pharma cash.” Watters: “If Kennedy isn’t recommending healthy 18-year-olds get COVID boosters, then there's less pharma cash to spread around to the politicians. If a baby gets eight vaccines instead of 18, less cash to spread around to the politicians. If doctors tell patients to eat healthy and exercise instead of get the fat shot, less cash to the politicians. Same thing with sex changes, diabetes medication, and antidepressants. Did you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics, some of their biggest donors — vaccine makers? Take the COVID vaccine. Nothing they said about the COVID vaccine turned out to be true.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/4/25]
- Newsmax's Rob Schmitt described comments from senators questioning Kennedy as “enraged insults from politicians who have either been bribed to protect Big Pharma or those who have fully drunk their Kool-Aid.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [9/4/25]
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09/09/25 10:09 AM EDT
- ### Fox News championed anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. Now he’s killing research into next-generation vaccines.
08/11/25 9:56 AM EDT
07/09/25
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mma
Greg Gutfeld once denounced Donald Trump’s “antiscience point of view” on vaccines and autism
The Fox host is now a strong supporter of antivax crusader and HHS secretary RFK Jr.
Written by Matt Gertz
Research contributions from Isabella Corrao
Published 09/09/25
When a Republican presidential candidate pushed the falsehood that childhood vaccines cause autism at a 2015 debate, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld denounced that candidate for adopting a “hysterical antiscience point of view.” He warned that the false narrative was “stupid,” “destructive,” “deadly,” and “dangerous,” and described its proponents as “bozos” who risked the lives of children.
That candidate was Donald J. Trump.
A decade later, President Trump has installed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the anti-vax crusader who has long blamed increasing cases of autism on childhood vaccinations — at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy is using to undermine public confidence in and access to vaccines.
And Gutfeld, rather than vigorously standing up for the importance of vaccination against the “antiscience point of view,” has embraced Kennedy as “open-minded” and honest, and is running cover for the secretary against his purportedly “unglued” critics.
The collapse of Gutfeld’s moral clarity demonstrates how the right stopped worrying about the potential deaths of children and brought vaccine deniers into the fold during the COVID-19 pandemic — and how fealty to Trump has become the MAGA movement’s sole defining principle.
Gutfeld in 2015: Trump linking childhood vaccines to autism “is destructive and it's ignorant because it’s not science”
Republican presidential candidates argued over the fabricated link between vaccines and autism after CNN moderator Jake Tapper raised Trump’s past comments about it during the party’s September 16, 2015, presidential primary debate.
Trump defended his prior remarks, calling for “smaller doses” of vaccines “over a longer period of time,” citing the case of “a beautiful child [who] went to have the vaccine” and then, “a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.” Fellow candidates Rand Paul and Ben Carson, both medical doctors, responded by defending vaccines, with Carson noting, “We have extremely well-documented proof that there’s no autism associated with vaccination.”
Gutfeld picked this portion of the debate to discuss the following day on Fox’s panel show The Five, calling it “a moment that I didn’t like.” After airing portions of comments from Trump, Paul, and Carson, the Fox host warned about potential disaster if the GOP adopted such lies.
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From the September 17, 2015, edition of Fox News' The Five
“This is a really bad thing to happen to the Republican Party, an anti — hysterical anti-science point of view about vaccines,” Gutfeld said. “And using the anecdote with a child is destructive and it’s ignorant because it’s not science.”
“It’s a false causal argument to say because vaccines and autism symptoms appear at the same time, ergo, the vaccines cause autism,” he continued. “That’s the same as saying, you know when you have ice cream and you get sunburns in the summertime, therefore ice cream causes sunburns. It’s stupid and it’s bad for Republicans.”
“And not only that, it’s deadly and it’s dangerous,” Gutfeld added. “We’re seeing outbreaks of measles all around the world. We’re seeing it in Australia, we’re seeing it in Africa where people are actually dying. Meanwhile, we’re having outbreaks in Disneyland.”
“Why is this happening? Because people are listening to bozos who are questioning the validity of what is really a wall,” he concluded, referencing Trump’s call to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. “Science built a wall against disease and it’s called vaccines.”
Gutfeld didn’t stop there — he went on to criticize Paul and Carson for not being explicit enough in their criticism of Trump and defence of vaccines.
“It was terrible,” Gutfeld said of their remarks. “They’re doctors. And I’m glad Ben Carson, feebly, came up and said something, but they are doctors and they have a responsibility to defend the profession because there are doctors like them everyday who have to confront this argument.”
“Whenever they go in there and have worried mothers or elderly people who don’t want vaccines, they are the ones in the frontlines,” he added. “And those doctors are on TV and they should have come out, they should have been forthright about it.”
“You know, hats off, that’s just so strong and so right, I’m so glad you said that,” liberal co-host Juan Williams replied.
Gutfeld in 2025: “Open-minded” RFK Jr. is defending “his vaccine policies” from “unglued” Democrats who “gave us Rachel Levine”
As Gutfeld warned, Trump’s 2015 vaccine comments were a harbinger of the GOP moving toward a “hysterical anti-science point of view about vaccines.” But it was his network that played an instrumental role in that shift, first helping supercharge anti-vaccine sentiment within the party, then propelling Kennedy into Republican prominence and then Trump’s cabinet.
And Gutfeld, who once righteously ranted against both anti-vax Republicans and those who fail to offer a sufficiently vehement response to their lies, has taken up the side of the liars. He has long since made peace with Trump’s domination of GOP politics and rebooted himself as a MAGA diehard, adopting a tone far more deferential to the “bozos” he once decried.
In late January, following Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, Gutfeld could have tried to hold the line and urge Republican Senators to vote against someone who espouses a view he had described as “dangerous” and “deadly.” He did not, instead presenting the nominee as a “glorious mixed bag” whom the senators should support.
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From the January 29, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five
“On one hand, he's passionate, he's persuasive, he's open-minded, he's not woke, he's interested in the world around him, not himself,” Gutfeld explained to his co-hosts in The Five. “On the other hand, he has stuff on vaccines and autism that seems more reliant on his gut instinct than science, the correlation, the rise of childhood autism or autism and the use of vaccines, it's not cause and effect, it's a correlation.”
“If I were in the Senate — and who's to say I'm not? — I would vote for him,” he concluded. “All Republicans should say yes.”
Republican senators, even those who had questioned Kennedy’s vaccine views, ultimately agreed with Gutfeld and confirmed Kennedy to lead HHS. Every Democratic senator and a single Republican — Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who survived childhood polio — voted against him.
Since ascending to the top position in the U.S. health bureaucracy, Kennedy has proved correct the critics who warned that he would use that power to carry out his political project of sabotaging the nation’s vaccination regime. Kennedy has slashed funding that went to vaccinate vulnerable children and terminated grants that supported research into next-generation mRNA vaccines. Amid a pediatric measles outbreak in the American Southwest, he went out of his way to talk down the need for children to be vaccinated against the disease.
But perhaps most concerning of all, Kennedy has replaced the members of a vaccine advisory board with his own picks — some of whom were notorious vaccine critics — who plan to review the childhood vaccination schedule. According to former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susana Monarez, she was asked to resign and then pushed out when she refused to preapprove that board’s recommendations; her removal last month triggered an exodus of top CDC scientists.
When Kennedy appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last Thursday, he drew rebukes not only from its Democratic members but also from three Republicans who sit on the committee and voted for his confirmation. Notably, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a gastroenterologist, said that under Kennedy’s leadership, “we’re denying people vaccine,” while Sen. John Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon, said he had “grown deeply concerned” with the secretary’s oversight of vaccination efforts.
But Gutfeld, introducing a segment on the hearing later that day, simply disappeared all the critiques from Republicans.
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From the September 4, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five
“RFK Jr. defending his vaccine policies against Democrats on Capitol Hill, furious over his ousting of the CDC director,” he said. “Junior says it's time for new blood at the health agency after they failed Americans during COVID.”
He alleged that “the Dems came unglued” at the hearing, and later mocked them on the grounds that “they don’t look like they’re in excellent health.”
Gutfeld had previously denounced Paul and Carson for not being strenuous enough in their criticism of Trump’s vaccine claims, arguing that as doctors, “they have a responsibility to defend the profession because there are doctors like them everyday who have to confront this argument.” But he never got around to addressing the Kennedy criticisms made by Republican senators who are also medical doctors — though he did argue that, in his opinion, babies don’t need the hepatitis B vaccine the CDC recommends they receive at birth.
Gutfeld returned to the subject of Kennedy’s hearing the following day, this time offering a firm defense of the HHS secretary.
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From the September 5, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five
“I can disagree with RFK on a lot of things and I have and I've written about it actually,” Gutfeld said, without outlining the subjects on which they disagree. “But I will never call him a liar. And I have seen him debate people who actually seriously disagree with him. And he does something that Democrats don't do: He listens.”
Gutfeld then recited a litany of examples he suggested show that it is Kennedy’s critics who are untruthful, claiming they are “disqualified from this discussion” because they purportedly “lied about” former President Joe Biden’s health; his son Hunter Biden’s laptop; the existence of man-made climate change; and “10% for the big guy.”
“I honestly cannot be told that my side is anti-science when you gave us Rachel Levine,” Gutfeld concluded.
That’s Gutfeld in a nutshell. A decade ago, he warned that Republicans would become “antiscience” if they adopted a Trumpian stance against vaccines. Now that has come to pass — but he won’t accept it because trans people exist.
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08/28/25 12:31 PM EDT
- ### Fox News championed anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. Now he’s killing research into next-generation vaccines.
08/11/25 9:56 AM EDT
03/12/25
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A dangerous group of whacko militants threatens to destroy Florida as we know it
:{:{D. Earl Stephens September 07, 2025}:
Florida announced plans this week to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates, INCLUDING FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN.
Read that again.
I had intended to write about the Epstein files today, and the incredibly brave survivors of alleged child rape, who gathered on Capitol Hill to tell their stories. They were there because it is beginning to look like our president who ran on releasing those files, instead has a starring role in them, and will do everything possible to make sure they never see the light of day.
That would generally would be a banner story. In a sane, just world, it would have the potential to end Donald Trump's presidency, and ultimately land him jail for the rest of his miserable life.
But because you hang around places like this and pay attention, you don’t need me to tell you that we are not living in a sane, just world.
Just how insane and unjust is the world? Consider that the possibility of the president being accused of sexual abusing underage women was by far only the second-biggest story of the day ...
Truth is, this vaccine news might be one of the most significant stories of the century, because of its gruesome ramifications on the future of our rattling civilization.
Bluntly: If Florida goes through with this death plan, it could potentially result in one of the largest losses of human life ever.
Look, vaccines have been a life-changing discovery, and one of mankind’s greatest achievements. The advent of vaccines has saved hundreds of millions of lives the past 100 years or so.
That we are reversing our thinking on the use of vaccines in America is almost too absurd to contemplate. The profound stupidity and danger this presents really can't be overstated.
MILLIONS of lives are at risk if Florida out-Floridas itself and actually puts this deranged plan into action.
We need only look at COVID to see this.
Despite what you’ll hear from many ghoulish, anti-life Republicans, millions of lives were saved thanks to COVID vaccines. Maybe even more startling, an estimated 317,000 lives in the United States alone would have been saved during the COVID outbreak had everybody just done their civic duty and gotten vaccinated.
If Florida goes ahead with this insane plan, just as sure as I am typing this, all kinds of otherwise preventable diseases will begin reappearing all over the place — measles and polio just to name a couple. And while our children will be most vulnerable, because Republicans never saw a kid whose life wasn’t worth jeopardizing, Florida’s huge population of retirees will also be under direct threat.
We will ALL be under threat.
Today’s gruesome news comes in the backdrop of the insane vaccine guidance being shoveled out to the American public by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our secretary of Health and Human Services, who listens to everybody but professionals in the medical and scientists communities, ignores a century’s worth of vaccines’ positive results, and has been a vocal vaccine skeptic.
Last month, after Kennedy proudly announced the rollback of nearly $500 million in vaccine funding, I typed this:
“Instead of answers and more science and discovery to make sure we are ready for the next mass-medical emergency, Trump instead has inflicted us with this gruesome stray from the Kennedy dynasty, who is quickly becoming a one-man pandemic.”
Last week, Susan Monarez, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was forced out by Captain Death less than one month into her job for refusing to go along with this maniac’s plans to end us.
Four other leading officials at the CDC resigned because they too had come under extreme pressure from the sickening Kennedy. One of those officials said Kennedy’s team asked him to “change studies that have been settled in the past” to fit Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views.
Yep, “change studies.” Just make stuff up. I mean, it’s only people’s lives we are talking about …
So who are the players down in the Sunset State, who are putting this latest death plan into action?
Let’s start with Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general, who made the announcement standing beside the state’s grotesque and Trump-slobbering Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Ladapo is a COVID vaccine-denier. A quack. A nut. A complete moron.
And dangerous as hell.
He has associated withccalled “America’s Frontline Doctors,” which is led by Texas physician Stella Immanuel, who has put forth the theory out loud and often that sperm from alien or demon sexual visitations are responsible for much of what ails us.
With qualifications like that, there is a good chance Ladapo has the inside track to the 2028 Republican Presidential nomination …
In announcing what will henceforth be known as the “Florida Death Plan” Ladapo said this:
“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?”
Who are YOU to tell us??? You are allegedly a doctor, sonny. Should we be going to an exterminator to get advice on medical issues?
Er … That actually might be advisable in Florida.
He added that the administration would be “working to end” all vaccine mandates, because “every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
I’m not making this up.
Not a single word about the lives vaccines have saved, just lies and conspiracy theories, because that is the Republican way in 2025.
And then, of course, there’s DeSantis himself. A dumb man’s idea of a smart person. The ultimate Florida Man. A guy, who says, “Watch this!” while playing with matches and gasoline, as is the case with this maniacal, evil vaccine plan.
While standing next to Ladapo with that beachball-sized smirk on his face, Trump’s willing punching bag announced that his wife, Casey DeSantis, will head the commission on the Florida Death Plan, because if we are going to kill hundreds of a thousands of children best we have a dreadfully unqualified ghoul doing it.
Her beaming husband, Ron, ended the press conference by bragging:
“We’ve already done a lot. I don’t think any state has come even close to what Florida has done.”
He’ll get no argument there.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.
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RFK2 GRILLED SENATE 9 25
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09/04/25 5:54 PM EDT
09/04/25
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CONFRIM PROMISED TO LEAVE SCI BD IN PLACE, LIED
ONLY 65 UP
THEHILL
Trump taps RFK Jr. deputy as interim CDC director
:{:{by Joseph Choi and Brett Samuels - 08/28/25}:
The Trump administration has picked Deputy Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Jim O’Neill to serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a day after the administration fired current Director Susan Monarez, officials told The Hill.
Monarez is contesting her firing, though the White House has confirmed her ouster following a statement on Wednesday from HHS.
O’Neill is a Silicon Valley investor and former CEO of the Thiel Foundation, funded by Trump donor Peter Thiel. He previously served as principal associate deputy secretary at HHS during the George W. Bush administration.
He was sworn in as deputy secretary in June.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would announce a replacement for Monarez “very soon.”
WATCH: Remembering Hurricane Katrina's Devastation 20 Years Later | TRENDING
The tumult in leadership has sparked panic and outrage among public health groups and Democrats in Congress.
Following Monarez’s ouster, four top CDC leaders submitted their resignations on Wednesday.
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), leaders of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, have vowed to conduct oversight into the matter.
In a 2014 speech, O’Neill called for pushing against the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mission to consider the efficacy of drugs in its decision to approve them, saying the agency should only consider safety.
“We should reform FDA so that it’s approving drugs after their sponsors have demonstrated safety and let people start using them at their own risk, but not much risk of safety,” O’Neill said at the time.
Tags Bernie Sanders Bil
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AN 8 25
zephr.thedailybeast.com
https://zephr.thedailybeast.com › rfk-jr-scores-maha-win-as-trump-taps-his-deputy-for-top-cdc-role
RFK Jr. Scores MAHA Win as Trump Taps His Deputy for Top CDC Role
O'Neill served in senior roles at the Health Department under the George W. Bush administration before becoming managing director of the hedge fund Clarium Capital. During his time in Silicon Valley, he was CEO of the Thiel Foundation and co-founded the Thiel Fellowship, a grant
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MMA MSNBC
NO LNX
Aug. 10, 2025, 3:00 AM PDT
By Matt Gertz, senior fellow for Media Matters for America
Fox News hosts elevated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to help return President Donald Trump to the White House. They then greased the skids for Kennedy’s confirmation as secretary of health and human services. But as he works to demolish American health care research, they are nowhere to be found.
Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who once described Covid-19 shots as “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” announced on Tuesday that he is terminating nearly $500 million in federal contracts supporting the development of next-generation vaccines and other treatments based on mRNA technology. “After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses,” he said in a video posted online.
Before the pandemic, Kennedy was not a natural fit for the Fox audience.
But Kennedy’s announcement drew harsh criticism from infectious disease experts and other scientists. They warned that the cuts could stall treatments for everything from respiratory illnesses to cancer, leave the nation more exposed to pandemics, undermine public trust in vaccines and threaten U.S. global leadership in medical advances.
While Kennedy’s announcement was widely discussed on MSNBC and CNN, as well as by national broadcast, print and digital outlets, Fox News has almost entirely ignored it. A single 30-second news brief on its “Special Report” program represents the entirety of the Trumpist propaganda network’s coverage through Thursday, according to a Media Matters review.
Fox News may not want to claim credit for Kennedy as he stifles crucial medical research, but it certainly deserves it. You can’t explain the evolution from Trump’s first administration, which fast-tracked the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 through Operation Warp Speed, to the second term’s anti-vax, “Make America Healthy Again” schtick without talking about the network’s role in turning the GOP base against vaccines and toward conspiracy theorists like Kennedy.
'Misinformed' or 'speaking in the wrong terms': Doctor rebukes RFK Jr. over cutting mRNA research
05:03
When pharmaceutical companies began rolling out the vaccines produced under the Trump administration in late 2020 and early 2021, Fox News’ stars could have used the unique influence they have over their viewers to encourage them to get their Covid-19 shots. But Trump had lost his re-election bid, and the network that had worked so hard to keep him in office instead pandered to anti-vaxxers by turning against the vaccination campaign helmed by his successor, President Joe Biden.
Led by its then-prime-time star Tucker Carlson, the network incessantly promoted misleading and false claims about safe, effective vaccines with the potential to save their viewers’ lives — day after day, month after month, year after year. The network uplifted conspiracy theories, gave airtime to conspiracy theorists and culture war vaccine opponents, demagogued against efforts to get more people to receive these lifesaving shots, and propped up ineffective cures as potential substitutes. Fox News continued to broadcast these segments even as more Republican parts of the country, with lower vaccination rates, suffered higher Covid-19 death tolls, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt detailed.
All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right had the impact one would expect.
Before the pandemic, Kennedy, the scion of a Democratic dynasty who once called for a boycott of Fox News host Sean Hannity and described him as a fascist, was not a natural fit for the Fox audience. But with the Covid-19 vaccine campaign underway, his decades of work undermining vaccines and his attacks on the new mRNA vaccines in particular suddenly made him attractive to the right.
When he began his presidential campaign in March 2023 — with Carlson’s show as his launchpad — MAGA media stalwarts saw an opportunity. They treated Kennedy’s bid, first in the Democratic primary and then as an independent candidate, as a potent spoiler candidacy to boost Trump’s return to power. Kennedy became a constant presence on the programs of pro-Trump commentators. Fox provided him with more airtime than many would-be Republican standard-bearers received.
All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right — alongside mainstream news coverage of his bizarre history, such as his claim that a parasite in his brain had triggered memory loss — had the impact one would expect: Kennedy became more popular with Republicans than Democrats. As polls increasingly showed that he was pulling support from Trump, though, MAGA media figures like Hannity abruptly turned on Kennedy. After Carlson reportedly helped to facilitate Kennedy’s decision to drop out and endorse the once-and-future president, Fox hosts resumed showering the anti-vax champion with praise.
‘Explosive’ conservative non-doctor turbocharging RFK Jr’s healthcare coup
05:52
As Election Day approached, talk turned to what reward Kennedy could expect in return. Paul Dans, the former head of Project 2025, floated Kennedy’s name for HHS secretary — and that’s precisely the position Trump nominated him for.
Not everyone on the right was willing to accept Kennedy’s ascent. The editorial boards of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and New York Post denounced the decision and called for Senate Republicans to vote down his nomination.
Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters.
But Fox News hosts were elated. As Kennedy’s nomination moved through the Senate, they touted him as a “reformer” and “true health care crusader” who had “the skills, knowledge, and experience” needed for the job.” When Kennedy said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines, Fox said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines.
Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters — the Senate confirmed Kennedy on a near-party-line vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, the sole Republican vote against him.
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And lo and behold, once confirmed, Kennedy continued the anti-vax project to which he had dedicated years of his life. He yanked $2 billion in funding to vaccinate children whose families may not be able to afford immunizations. He downplayed the importance of vaccination for quelling a measles outbreak even as measles cases hit record highs. He replaced the members of a vaccine advisory board with his own picks — some of whom were notorious vaccine critics — who plan to review the childhood vaccination schedule and scrutinize its components. And now he’s terminated federal funding that could have fueled a new wave of cures.
Under Kennedy’s leadership, the Department of Health and Human Services itself has become a grave threat to public health. That is the regrettable but inevitable consequence of Fox News’ cynical exploitation of its viewers. The network’s hosts should take a bow — they earned it.
Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media. His work focuses on the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party, media ethics and news coverage of politics and elections.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest attack on public health is drawing fierce backlash from medical and scientific experts after he canceled or altered nearly two dozen mRNA-related contracts—the very technology that enabled the rapid development of COVID shots credited with saving millions of lives since late 2020.
Among those projects affected are ones “creating an H5N1 bird flu vaccine and developing respiratory virus therapeutics,” The Washington Post reported. About $500 million in contracts are affected. The Post referred to Secretary Kennedy as “the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group who once falsely called coronavirus shots the ‘deadliest vaccine ever made.'”
“The cancellations dismayed scientists who believe mRNA shots offer the best protection for Americans in a pandemic,” reported The New York Times.
READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations
“Kennedy’s decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic’s doubts about shots into full effect at the nation’s health department,” the Associated Press reported. “Kennedy has pulled back recommendations around the COVID-19 shots, fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, and refused to offer a vigorous endorsement of vaccinations as a measles outbreak worsened.”
“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Secretary Kennedy said in a statement. “We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”
Experts strongly disagree, and the Washington Post reported that large-scale studies have shown that mRNA vaccines are “safe and effective.”
“Completely horrifying,” commented Timothy Caulfield, a Professor of Law at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health and a Research Director at the Health Law Institute. He appeared to call the HHS Secretary an “Anti-science monster.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations told the AP.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine is a former CDC Medical Officer.
READ MORE: Transportation Secretary Warns US Is Behind in ‘Race to the Moon’
Responding to video of RFK Jr.’s remarks, Dr. Klausner wrote that the HHS Secretary “is increasingly positioning himself as the most corrupt and ill-informed Secretary of Health in US history. His legacy will be one of foolish decisions that destroyed medicine and public health.”
Dr. Simon Maechling, who has a PhD in organic chemistry, remarked that the mRNA contracts were cut not because the vaccines “failed” or were “unsafe,” but “because of ideology.”
“Twenty-two projects – gone overnight. These weren’t fringe efforts. They included next-gen vaccines for COVID-19, influenza, RSV, and even H5N1 bird flu,” he wrote. “Pulling support for them isn’t a safety move – it’s an anti-vaccine statement dressed in bureaucratic language.”
“RFK Jr. isn’t making America safer,” Maechling added. “He’s dismantling the infrastructure we’ll need for the next crisis – in the name of belief over biology. It’s not principled. It’s reckless.”
Dr. Catharine Young, a senior fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, noted, “mRNA technology didn’t appear overnight. it is the result of DECADES of research – now driving some of the most promising advances in cancer, HIV, and rare disease. It is precise, fast, and adaptable – and yes – revolutionary. And it is now very much being dismantled.”
Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases specialist and clinical associate professor at Stanford blasted RFK Jr.’s claimed reason for cutting the contracts as “naive,” and wrote that it “reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of vaccinology. It conflates the unrealistic goal of blocking all infections with the real, achievable goal: reducing serious illness and death.”
Infectious Diseases doctor and clinician scientist Dr. Neil Stone also slammed Kennedy:
“RFK Jr’s attack on mRNA vaccines is not based on science. As a life long anti vaxxer he disproportionately listens to those who expouse anti vaccine views And he believes them. It’s outrageous.”
Dr. Michael White, an Associate Professor of Genetics at Washington University in the St. Louis School of Medicine declared it a “Completely insane decision to walk away from one of the most promising medical technologies, allowing the US to get smoked in this area of biotech by other countries with more foresight.”
“A bad day for science, and huge blow to our national security,” declared immunologist and virologist Rick White. “This decision will have dangerous repercussions.”
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