RFK Jr. Tells Anti-Vaccine Conference: 'Friend at White House' — SkimNews
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- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the Children's Health Defense conference he founded that attendees have 'a strong and steadfast friend at the White House' and that he would 'die with my boots on' pursuing answers about vaccine risks.
- The remarks marked a reversal from earlier this year, when White House officials and political advisers pushed Kennedy to sidestep vaccines amid widespread voter support for protecting children from deadly diseases.
- The speech came one day after Dr. Nicole Saphier, Trump's nominee for surgeon general, gave a 'full-throated defense' of vaccine safety and efficacy during her Senate confirmation hearing.
- The conference featured Mark Gorton, president of the MAHA Institute, calling the polio vaccine's success a 'fraud,' and Andrew Wakefield — the discredited British doctor whose retracted paper linked the MMR vaccine with autism — speaking after Kennedy.
- With midterms less than two months away and Republicans struggling in polls, Kennedy is rallying Make America Healthy Again followers frustrated by the pace of his policy changes, and promised 'appropriate action' once new vaccine studies launch.
Why it matters: Kennedy's public embrace of vaccine skepticism directly contradicts the surgeon general nominee his own president tapped to defend vaccines the day before, exposing an internal administration split. With Republicans trailing in polls ahead of midterms, the move trades mainstream voters' support for childhood vaccination for MAHA base energy — a gamble the source flags by noting Kennedy's own followers have grown impatient with the pace of change.
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