“RFK Jr. is one of the lead anti-vaccine activists pushing this discredited theory and he keeps moving the goalposts on what he says is the reason for autism,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, epidemiologist and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
[Hotez’s credibility on the specious vaccine-autism subject is further enhanced, as some see it, because he is also the father of a daughter with autism, whose personal condition gave Hotez the title for his book: “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad“.]
Expanding on RFK’s goalpost moves, Hotez continued: “First in the late 1990s, early 2000s, they said it was the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR). That was disproven through large epidemiological studies.”
Hotez added: “Then Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2005 wrote an article… claiming it was Thimerosal preservative — that was debunked.” (Thimerosal preservative is a vaccine additive.)
Describing Kennedy’s moving-targets approach in identifying the purported link, Hotez said it “became a kind of whack-a-mole game. Another one would pop up… and then they switched for a while to HPV vaccines for cervical cancer — they said it was causing infertility and auto-immunity.”
12.13.24 858 am ET CNN Anchor @KateBolduan w/
Vaccine Scientist and Author of Combating Anti- science. Professor Pediatrics Molecular Virology@bcmhouston Dr Peter Hotez MD @PeterHotez
Focus: Debunking the myth that vaccines cause autism
Personal Note: I recently met Dr… pic.twitter.com/9jTnml2O5D
— Jeff Storobinsky (@jeffstorobinsky) December 13, 2024
Hotez had been asked by CNN for his opinion of President-elect Donald Trump‘s nomination of Kennedy — neither a doctor nor a scientist — to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, especially in light of Trump’s signaling that he will entertain Kennedy’s theories about a link between autism and vaccines.
Trump’s suggestive answer on the subject — “if you look at things that are happening, there’s something causing it,” he said — indicated that the incoming President will be giving the go-ahead for the whack-a-mole game to continue.
Kasie Hunt: You recently said, “There’s no vaccine that’s safe and effective”. Do you still believe that?
RFK Jr: I never said that.
Hunt: Play the clip.
RFK JR (in the clip): There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.
pic.twitter.com/GJs4KstYg8— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 15, 2024
In a separate clip above, Kennedy — demonstrating the tendency to speak loosely about vaccines that Hotez describes — describes “77 vaccines” people are given — later changing it to 14 when questioned.
Currently WHO lists these 14 diseases against which children in developed nations are commonly vaccinated: diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, measles, meningitis A, pertussis, invasive pneumococcal disease, polio, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis, and yellow fever.