Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is trying to have it both ways when it comes to the measles vaccine.
In his first sit-down interview in his role as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—which was taped Tuesday and aired on CBS News Wednesday morning—Kennedy claimed to endorse the vaccine after a record both long and very recent of pushing baseless treatments.
“The federal government’s position, my position, is people should get the measles vaccine, but the government should not be mandating those,” he said. That comment appeared to surprise the interviewer, Dr. Jon LaPook, chief medical correspondent for CBS News, who replied: “That’s new, as far as I’m concerned, that you’re saying that.” (Predictably, anti-vaxxers are pissed.)
Kennedy actually appeared to first endorse the vaccine the day before, writing in a post on X on Monday: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.” That day, he wrote, he had gone to Texas to comfort the family of the second unvaccinated child to die in the Texas outbreak and attend her burial services; the girl, Daisy Hildebrand, died last Thursday at eight years old, according to her obituary. (An unvaccinated person in New Mexico who tested positive for measles died last month, but the official cause of death in that case remains under investigation.)
But an apparent conversion to now supporting the measles vaccine—which he has long questioned, despite evidence showing it is highly effective—this is not.
The very same day Kennedy sent the X post from Texas, he shared another post in which he boosted baseless treatments offered by two doctors with anti-vaccine histories: “I also visited with these two extraordinary healers, Dr. Richard Bartlett and Dr. Ben Edwards who have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin,” RFK Jr. wrote. According to CNN, Bartlett faced discipline by the Texas Medical Board in 2003 for “unusual use of risk-filled medications”; he also promoted an experimental concoction of drugs to treat COVID-19, which was not supported by evidence. Edwards, for his part, described the measles outbreak as “God’s version of measles immunization” and advocated that people treat it by drinking green juice or water with sea salt “and go sit outside and listen to a bird chirp,” the Washington Post reported.
The conflicting messages come after Kennedy also promoted aerosolized budesonide, which is used to treat symptoms of asthma, and clarithromycin, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, to treat measles in a Fox interview last month. But health officials say there is no evidence to support the use of either as a treatment for measles. “Promoting unproven medications for measles treatment puts children at unnecessary risk, and the only way to prevent measles is by vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine,” Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, said. As my colleague Kiera Butler reported, Kennedy also promoted cod liver oil as a treatment for the latest measles outbreak, despite there being no supporting evidence.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called on RFK Jr. to step down on Wednesday, pointing to last week’s mass firings at HHS, his reported plans to tell the CDC to stop recommending fluoride in water, and his forcing out of the FDA’s top vaccine official last month.
“His mixed messages on vaccines are confusing and his support for unproven alternative therapies for measles has perpetuated their use,” Benjamin said in a separate statement provided to Mother Jones asking specifically about the CBS interview that aired Wednesday. “He has demonstrated his incompetence to continue to lead our nation’s health efforts.”
That lack of competence was once again displayed in his interview on Wednesday, when Kennedy also claimed in the CBS interview to be unaware of more than $11 billion worth of funding cuts affecting “local and state programs addressing things like infectious disease, mental health, addiction, childhood vaccination,” as LaPook described it. “I’m not familiar with those cuts,” Kennedy said, before claiming they were “mainly DEI cuts.”
But that’s not true. As LaPook pointed out, one of the cuts was for a $750,000 grant for studying adolescent diabetes. “I didn’t know that,” Kennedy said. “And that’s something that we’ll look at.”
Another thing Kennedy does not appear to know? That the measles vaccine is safe and effective, and there is no reason to trust the remedies he and his conspiracy theorist cronies are pushing.
Spokespeople for HHS did not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones.
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.