The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines

During his Senate confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines.

But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety, public health experts say. The National Institutes of Health for researchers who study vaccine hesitancy and hoped to find ways to overcome it. It also intended to discover new vaccines to prevent future pandemics.



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shelved an advertising campaign for the flu shot. Mr. Kennedy has said inaccurately that the scientists who advise the C.

D.C. on vaccines have in promoting the products and cannot be trusted.

The Health and Human Services Department to state health agencies, including funds needed to modernize state programs for childhood immunization. Mr. Kennedy said in a televised interview on Wednesday that he was unaware of this widely reported development.

The Food and Drug Administration on flu vaccines with scientific advisers, later holding it behind closed doors. A paused the of Novavax’s Covid vaccine. In a televised interview last week, Mr.

Kennedy said falsely that similarly created vaccines don’t work against respiratory viruses. Some scientists said they saw a pattern: an effort to erode support for routine vaccination, and for the scientists who have long held it up as a public health goal. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

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