"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Conspiracy theorist stacks crucial immunization panel with fellow radical disinformation peddlers
In dramatic scenes on Capitol Hill, Robert F. Kennedy Jr found himself subject to furious questioning by Democrats over his firing of the United States' entire 17-person vaccines expert advisory board and replacing it with a handpicked cabal of some of his favored anti-science conspiracy theorists. But instead of mea culpas during the hearings, Donald Trump’s emboldened Health Secretary doubled down on his vaccine-skeptic measures - and unabashedly spouted more false claims about the Covid-19 jab being unsafe for pregnant women.
By getting rid of the Federal Centers for Disease Control's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that guided US vaccine policy and approvals, Kennedy has made good on his decades-old anti-vaccine obsession and fulfilled all the worst predictions of his sternest critics.
In a blatant flouting of his repeated pledges to not tamper with committee, RFK Jr ‘retired’ the vital and influential scientific expert panel in early June. He then swiftly replaced it with a smaller 8-member clutch composed of several dubious and disgraced quacks and self-styled experts who hew closely to his vaccine-skeptic ideology. The new committee is notable for members who have spread disinformation about immunization programs including preposterous claims that Covid shots cause AIDS. A plethora of vaccine scientists and doctors have deplored the blitz attack on immunization science as opening the floodgates to surging vaccine skepticism and a danger to the health of millions of American children and adults.
After the explosive questioning of Kennedy on June 24, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who agreed to vote to confirm Kennedy on the basis that he would not change the makeup of the vaccine panel, called on X for a delay in the holding of the new committee's first scheduled meeting. "Although the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology," Cassidy wrote. "In particular, some lack experience studying new technologies such as mRNA vaccines, and may even have a preconceived bias against them...The meeting should be delayed until the panel is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation—as required by law—including those with more direct relevant expertise. Otherwise, ACIP’s recommendations could be viewed with skepticism, which will work against the success of this Administration's efforts."
Kennedy, who has spent decades promoting the disproven theory that vaccines cause autism, was grilled for hours during the June 24 budget hearings over his actions as Health Secretary including slashing budgets for scientific research, ending HIV vaccine research, and disbanding the vaccine expert panel. Congresswoman and pediatrician Kim Schrier asked: “Did you lie to [Republican] senator [Bill] Cassidy when you told him you would not fire this panel of experts?”. “You lied to senator Cassidy. You have lied to the American people,” Schrier said. “I lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet.”
The Health Secretary denied the accusations, despite clear evidence he had reneged on his agreement. “I made an agreement with him, and he and I talked many times about that agreement,” he said. During the hearings Kennedy called the panel he dissolved “a template for medical malpractice” and he attacked Democratic Representative from New Jersey Frank Pallone Jr., declaring he had been bought off by 2 million dollars in donations from pharmaceutical companies (Kennedy was forced to retract his claims).
Schrier decried Kennedy's deliberate spreading of misinformation about the measles vaccine. Only last month he made false public statements explaining the deaths of children and adults in Texas religious communities like the Mennonites because the measles vaccine contains parts of "aborted fetuses" and "DNA particles".
“Have you ever treated measles?” Schrier asked.
Kennedy answered "no", while laughing curtly.
“Well I have,” Schrier responded. “Let me tell you how miserable it is: These kids have high fevers, struggling to breathe, and they are crying. They suffer. The great thing is that there’s a vaccine to prevent it.”
Kennedy also declared he was going to withdraw the federal advice in favour of the Covid-19 vaccine for pregnant women, claiming “there was no science supporting that recommendation”, thus dismissing comprehensive research and studies proving its safety.
“We’re not depriving anybody of choice. If a pregnant woman wants the Covid-19 vaccine, she can get it. No longer recommending it because there was no science supporting that recommendation.”
On the 'Make America Healthy Again' Health Commission Report touted by Kennedy as "gold-standard science", the Health Secretary again waved away outrage over revelations that the report had invented seven cited sources, and misconstrued research around vaccines and drugs for conditions like ADHD.
Among the most radical on Kennedy's new vaccine advisory committee is Robert Malone, a doctor whose conspiracy mongering about Covid vaccines during the global pandemic led to his being repeatedly banned from Twitter. His rantings were also removed from social networks including YouTube. Malone, who has more than 350 thousand subscribers on his Substack, falsely claimed he invented the original technology behind mRNA vaccines, before calling for a ban on their use. In 2022 he declared on far right conspiracist Alex Jones’ Infowars program that the Covid crisis and measures to combat it including the vaccine were a “symptom” of a conspiracy to "reorganize society towards global communism”, and a mechanism of the ‘Great Reset’, the World Economic Forum’s agenda that he falsely asserted was a plan to “deindustrialize and depopulate the world.” Malone also promoted deadly ‘remedies’ against Covid-19 including Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, as well as untested treatments for measles, and suggested a form of AIDS is caused by Covid vaccines.
In December 2021 in a notorious appearance lasting three hours on podcaster Joe Rogan’s program, Malone floated the baseless theory of “mass formation psychosis”. He said this phenomenon had led to “a third of the population basically being hypnotized” into not questioning the Covid “narrative” (ie the facts) laid out by US chief epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, and mainstream news outlets. He then said the mass psychosis phenomenon was the same as what had resulted in the Nazi Germany regime, before going on to draw analogies between the Covid vaccine and medical experiments conducted under the Third Reich.
“It was from, basically, European intellectual inquiry into what the heck happened in Germany in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” he told Rogan in the podcast that immediately went viral. “Very intelligent, highly educated population, and they went barking mad. And how did that happen? The answer is mass formation psychosis.
“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or a series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere,” Malone said. Malone and Rogan also speculated without any evidence that US President Biden had faked his vaccination.
The uproar over Malone’s Rogan performance resulted in more than 270 doctors, scientists and researchers signing a letter demanding Spotify intervene to moderate the podcast it hosts. Singers Neil Young and Joni Mitchell withdrew their music from the streaming platform in protest against its muted reaction to Rogan and Malone.
Kennedy Jr’s purge of the expert body that evaluates the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to prevent diseases spreading was undertaken despite his pledges during Senate Confirmation hearings four months ago. In key testimony that gave Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy the justification he needed to vote for the Trump pick, which was in doubt, Kennedy Jr promised he would leave the advisory committee alone. The day before his spectacular firings of the vaccine panel he again committed to making sure that it would not be made up of “ideological anti-vaxxers”.
Malone is proudly anti-vaxxer and attributes “reality-bending information-control capabilities” to the US government. He is a publisher of overtly conspiracist tomes including In Lies My Gov’t Told Me: And the Better Future Coming. The bestselling book by Malone claims that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative funnneled money to media outlets in order to discredit critics of vaccines. He accuses Anthony Fauci of deliberately spreading fear to consolidate authority. In PsyWar, a follow-up co-authored with his wife, the authors argue that the US government is waging a covert psychological campaign against its own population. They assert that agencies like the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon—along with what they term a “censorship-industrial complex”—have developed tools to manipulate public perception. The book also alleges that transactional sex is used to forge temporary alliances within and between government bodies and contractors. The Malones describe a future shaped by institutional decay, where survival might depend on guns, ammunition, horses, and a trusted social network.
Kennedy Jr penned the foreword to Lies My Gov’t Told Me and contributed a promotional blurb for PsyWar linking theories of the Malones to the public reactions to his father and uncle JFK Jr’s assassinations. As noted in a report by The Atlantic, Kennedy has continued to favor his friend, even dedicating his 2021 conspiratorial book The Real Doctor Anthony Fauci to Malone.
Earlier this year Malone deliberately spread falsehoods about the death of an unvaccinated child in a measles outbreak. He doubled down on his conspiracy-laden worldview in an X post on June 9, published the day Kennedy Jr fired the 17 experts on the CDC vaccines panel.
“35–45% of Americans, including myself, find vaccine mandates as unacceptable,” Malone posted. “The government has definined (sic) this group of people as being anti-vaxers. Some people believe that the term anti-vaxer is a pejorative. I do not - I view it as high praise.
“I like to think of the people who fit this definition of "anti-vaxer" as representing the freedom fighters in our culture. People who advocate against mandates are working to end the madness of the vaccine mania that has swept public health and government. They (we) are working to protect our rights under the Constitution. The term "anti-vaxer" it is not a slur, but a compliment. Embrace it. Own it. and be proud to be a part of this fight.”
Malone is joined on the advisory panel by another prominent Covid disinformation peddler Martin Kulldorff, an infectious diseases professor who was fired by Harvard university due to his refusal to get himself vaccinated against Covid. Kulldorff co-authored with Jay Battacharya, the Trump-appointed new director of the National Institutes of Health, the so-called Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020. The tract militated against Covid lockdown measures including masks, social distancing and vaccines. Most controversially, the declaration urged the US to push for ‘herd immunity’ by exposing the vast majority of the population to Covid infection and only protecting smaller vulnerable groups like older Americans.
Malone and Kulldorff have blatant conflicts of interest because they received thousands of dollars in payments for appearing as expert witnesses for plaintiffs suing pharmaceutical giant Merck over HPV, and Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccines. Also appointed to Kennedy Jr’s vaccine skeptic panel is Vicky Pebsworth, a director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses, who is on the board of the vaccine skeptic and disinformation group called the National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC, formerly Dissatisfied Parents Together, has been spreading false information since it was set up in the 1980s. It receives at least 40 per cent of its funding by Covid misinformation merchant Joseph Mercola, an osteopath and vendor of alternative health products.
The American Health Secretary appeared empowered by his slash and burn approach to vaccine assessment and oversight, going on a detailed anti-vaxx ramble filled with untruths and distortions that went unchallenged by Fox News on June 12.
The Health Secretary made multiple false declarations including the bizarre claim that "vaccines deregulate the immune system" when they do the opposite. Among Kennedy Jr’s disinformation and conspiracy theories refuted by reputable epidemiologists and other scientists and doctors was the assertion that previous CDC vaccine committee members had financial conflicts of interest (they did not) and that the number of mandated vaccines had surged “from 11 vaccines in 1986 to 69-92 vaccines today”. The truth is that the increase has only been from 48 to 51 shots today including annual flu jabs. “Where does "92" come from?,” asked the Medical Doctor Jake Scott. “Creative accounting - counting each flu shot separately over 18 years, adding optional vaccines, even counting combination shots multiple times. It's dishonest math.” In addition Covid jabs are not ‘mandated’ by the CDC panel and only States can mandate and do not for Covid vaccines.
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