RFK Jr, known anti-vaxxer, suddenly supports MMR vaccination amid Texas measles outbreak

We promise we aren’t joking, but after years spent attacking the efficacy of vaccines, new US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is now promoting the measles jab (better known as the MMR vaccine, for measles, mumps and rubella) amid an outbreak of the virus in Texas.

State officials reported on Friday that were 146 cases of measles, with 20 hospitalisations.

Two days earlier, they had confirmed the first death from the virus – an unvaccinated child who has not been named – which was also the first death from measles in the US in a decade.

The MMR vaccine has long been the target of anti-vaxxers following the publication of a flawed study by disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet back in 1998, falsely suggesting a link between the jab and autism.

The science was debunked by investigative journalist Brian Deer, The Lancetlater retracted the study, and the General Medical Council struck Wakefield off the medical register after finding him guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Despite this, RFK Jr has entertained the same disproven and debunked notion that vaccines cause autism. Prior to becoming secretary of health and human services, Kennedy Jr was the chairman of Children’s Health Defense, an organisation he founded which looks to end “childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure”.

In 2019, he wrote to the prime minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, following a measles outbreak in the country, to say it was “critical” that the country’s health ministry “determine, scientifically, if the outbreak was caused by inadequate vaccine coverage or alternatively, by a defective vaccine”.

A year later, Children’s Health Defense published a blog post in which it slammed “the inexcusable suppression of a long-documented link” between measles vaccination and autism, attacking the “dogma” and “aggressive and unnuanced media mantra that MMR ‘does not cause autism’” (again, it doesn’t).

And in 2023, when he was running as a candidate for last year’s presidential election (he later dropped out and backed Donald Trump), he told Fox News presenter Jesse Watters: “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.”

But ahead of him being confirmed as the new health secretary by the US Senate, he told a Senate confirmation hearing that he is neither “anti-vaccine or anti-industry”, but rather “pro-safety”.

And despite what all the past comments may have you believe, he’s now penned an article for Fox News Digital in which he takes a more positive stance on the issue of vaccination amid the crisis in Texas.

He writes: “Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health. All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine.

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.”

The piece also comes with the subheading that the MMR vaccine “is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease”.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter/X users have expressed shock at the op-ed and Kennedy’s apparent U-turn:

Another wrote that RFK Jr’s recommendation is “too little, too late”:

And others compared it to “an arsonist urging people to put out the fire he started”:

In addition to the comments marking a shift from RFK Jr on vaccines, it also contrasts comments made last week that the measles outbreak in Texas was "not unusual".

"Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year there were 16. So, it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year," he said.

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