How RFK Jr.’s assurances to senators contradict his past remarks
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried this week to distance himself from a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and false information as he parried questions from senators who are weighing whether to confirm him as the nation’s next health and human services secretary.
During confirmation hearings Wednesday and Thursday, he repeatedly insisted he did not oppose vaccinations, despite founding an anti-vaccine organization years ago.
A Washington Post investigation identified dozens of times in recent years when Kennedy disparaged vaccines, including his claims that immunizations “poisoned an entire generation of American children” and that doctors have “butchered all these children” by providing routine immunization.
Here are other instances in which Kennedy’s comments at the Senate hearings contradicted past statements:
Touting his vaccinated children
Kennedy, in opening remarks: “All my kids are vaccinated. I believe vaccines have saved millions of lives and play a critical role in health care.”
Kennedy said in 2020 that he wishes he could go back in time and not vaccinate his children: “I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that.”
On the vaccine schedule
Kennedy to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts): “I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule.”
Kennedy has repeatedly decried an “exploding” schedule of recommended immunizations for children. He has criticized the addition of coronavirus vaccines to the schedule and tweeted in 2021 that it was “overburdened.”
This mirrors a common anti-vaccine talking point that the cumulative effect of the shots children receive could be harming them. Past studies have found the childhood immunization schedule to be safe.
In an interview with Epoch TV in 2023, Kennedy questioned how expanding the vaccine schedule made Americans healthier.
“There’s a lot of evidence that vaccines are not likely to give you an extended life,” Kennedy said. “In fact, they are likely to shorten your life and make it less enriching and make you a less effective human being.”
On the polio, measles vaccines
Kennedy to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.: “I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines.”
Kennedy often argues that the risks of vaccines outweigh their benefits, contradicting the conclusions of major medical associations, researchers and public health authorities.
In a 2021 interview, Kennedy said: “Every disease, every one of these childhood diseases, or rashes, mumps, measles, pertussis, chicken pox that are treated by these vaccines are all self-limiting, they’re all treatable. None of the chronic diseases that are caused by vaccines are curable.”
In a July 2023 appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kennedy suggested that the polio vaccine contained carcinogenic material. “So if you say to me … was it effective against polio? I’m going to say yes. If you say to me, did it kill more people? Did it … cause more deaths than it averted? I would say I don’t know because we don’t have the data on that.”
On the HPV vaccine
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.: “If confirmed as HHS secretary, would you recommend that parents get their children vaccinated against HPV?”
Kennedy: “I recommend that children follow the CDC schedule, and I will support the CDC schedule when I get in there.”
Medical experts say the vaccine against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, has dramatically reduced cervical cancer rates and is safe. Kennedy has referred people who claim they were injured by vaccines to a law firm that is suing the vaccine manufacturer. He has asserted that HPV vaccines increase the risk of death and can cause autoimmune diseases.
“Nobody would allow their daughter or their son to get a vaccine in which one out of every 40 kids is going to have lifetime autoimmune disease in many cases,” Kennedy said in a July 2020 interview.
On transgender children
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.: “Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender?”
Kennedy: “No, I never said that.”
Kennedy has repeatedly – and falsely – asserted that chemicals in the water that disrupt hormones, such as the herbicide atrazine, could be causing gender confusion or “profound sexual changes” in children. A spokesperson for Kennedy told CNN – which first reported the comments in 2023 – said he was not saying that those chemicals were the only or primary cause of gender dysphoria, but that the issue merited more research.
On comparing the CDC to Nazi death camps
Kennedy to Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, D-Ga.: “I was not comparing the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to Nazi death camps. I was comparing the injury rate to our children to other atrocities, and I wouldn’t compare the, of course, the CDC to Nazi death camps. To the extent that any statement that I made has been interpreted that way, yeah, I don’t agree with that.”
NBC News obtained footage of Kennedy’s appearance at a 2013 conference in Chicago, where he claimed the CDC harmed children in a way he likened to death camps. The statement concerned debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.
“To me, this is like Nazi death camps, what happened to these kids,” Kennedy said, citing the prevalence of autism in boys. “I can’t tell you why somebody would do something like that. I can’t tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust.”
On whether the coronavirus was ethnically targeted
Bennet: “Did you say that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white people, but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people?”
Kennedy: “I didn’t say it was deliberately targeted. I just, I just quoted an NIH-funded and NIH-published study.”
In a video recorded by the New York Post in July 2023, Kennedy said: “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Medical experts say those claims are baseless. The study Kennedy referenced did not contain those conclusions or mention Chinese people.
On the origins of Lyme disease
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.: “Do you still believe that Lyme disease was created as a military bioweapon?”
Kennedy: “I never believed that, Senator. … I never have said that, definitively, Lyme disease was created in a biolab.”
This came at Thursday’s hearing. At Wednesday’s hearing, when Kennedy was asked whether he had claimed Lyme disease was “a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon,” Kennedy acknowledged: “I probably did say that.”
In a January 2024 episode of his podcast, Kennedy said he never had to worry about contracting Lyme disease from ticks when he was growing up, floating a link to research at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York.
“It’s another thing that keeps us from enjoying the outdoors and keeps us locked inside. And the idea that this may have been, is highly likely to have been, a military weapon,” Kennedy said. “And we cannot say 100% for sure, but we do know that they were experimenting with ticks there.”
Scientists have said there is no credible evidence to suggest ticks were weaponized. The CDC attributes the rise of Lyme disease over the past several decades to several factors, including suburban development increasing contact between people and infected animals.
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Video: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for the nation’s top health post, spent much of his confirmation hearing on Jan. 29 denying and clarifying his previous statements on vaccines.© 2025 , The Washington Post
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