Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. informed the vaccine-skeptic group Youngsters’s Well being Protection on Thursday they’ve “a good friend within the White Home” in President Donald Trump.
Kennedy delivered the keynote tackle in Washington, D.C., at a convention hosted by the group, noting that Trump has given directives to strengthen analysis, transparency and parental selection round childhood vaccines.
“Let me be clear. You will have a powerful and steadfast good friend on the White Home,” Kennedy mentioned.
Kennedy additionally mentioned he needed to make extra sweeping modifications on “day one” however could not achieve this attributable to “procedures.”
“In authorities, a bunch of issues should occur earlier than one thing else occurs otherwise you get sued,” he mentioned. “It is a very laborious system and there is a number of inertia in-built that … if we have been capable of overcome it we might have modified issues on day one, however these would have been short-lived and I’d have been out of a job as a result of I’ve to handle my company competently in accordance with the regulation and in accordance with procedures.”
Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offers the keynote tackle at a Youngsters’s Well being Protection occasion in Washington, Sept. 17, 2026.
ABC Information
Youngsters’s Well being Protection, which advocates towards the advisable vaccine schedule for youngsters, was co-founded by Kennedy. He resigned from the board forward of his affirmation as HHS Secretary.
The group described the conference as a “well timed dialog [that] will happen towards a backdrop of unprecedented alternative and threat for the well being freedom motion.”
Additionally scheduled to look have been Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, in addition to Republican Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Dr. Fiona Havers, an infectious ailments doctor and a former main vaccine knowledgeable on the CDC, mentioned the Youngsters’s Well being Protection (CHD) has unfold false and deceptive info “that has contributed on to declining vaccination charges throughout the nation.”
“People at the moment are tragically experiencing the direct penalties of this, with greater than 3,000 measles instances this 12 months and 4 measles-related deaths reported in simply the previous few weeks,” Havers informed ABC Information in a press release. “By talking at CHD’s convention, RFK Jr. is utilizing his place because the U.S. authorities’s prime public well being official in a means that legitimizes CHD’s anti-vaccine message and undercuts efforts by CDC, state well being companies, clinicians and others to get these outbreaks beneath management.”
The HHS didn’t instantly return ABC Information’ request for remark.
Kennedy mentioned that Trump requested him to “vigorously examine the potential contribution of childhood vaccines to the power illness epidemic.”
Kennedy claimed that kids went from receiving three vaccines when he was a toddler to 94 doses of 18 vaccines presently. Docs have previously told ABC News that excluding annual flu and COVID-19 pictures, kids typically obtain roughly 30 vaccine doses — many in mixed injections — earlier than the age of 18
“The query is … ought to we be wanting on the potential that a few of these power sicknesses are related to vaccines?” Kennedy mentioned.
“As you’ll be able to see, many of those opposed occasions [from vaccines] embrace ailments, power sicknesses which are a part of the power illness epidemic,” Kennedy mentioned later in his speech. “In different phrases, sicknesses that turned instantly epidemic in our youngsters after 1989.”
The 12 months 1989 was also when the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Household Physicians advisable kids obtain a second measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) dose, though Kennedy didn’t point out that particular vaccine.
In depth scientific analysis has proven no causal hyperlink between the MMR vaccine and the event of power ailments.
During his confirmation hearings in 2025, Kennedy mentioned he would not forestall entry to vaccines, saying that he helps vaccines. Since then, he is additionally mentioned he believes the selection needs to be left as much as dad and mom.
Final 12 months, Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of the ACIP and appointed his own hand-selected members.
The committee then voted to take away the universal recommendation for the hepatitis B shot at delivery and to narrow existing recommendations for the combined MMRV shot that protects towards measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.
The group also voted against recommending flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, which is used to stop microbial contamination of vaccines. Most flu vaccines presently used within the U.S. comprise little to no thimerosal, however each the Meals and Drug Administration and the CDC say there isn’t any proof that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines trigger hurt apart from minor reactions on the injection website, akin to redness or swelling.
Moreover, firstly of this 12 months, Kennedy made modifications to the childhood vaccine schedule, decreasing the variety of advisable pictures from 17 to 11.
In March, a federal Massachusetts choose blocked modifications to the vaccine schedule, suspended the appointments of the 13 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee and stayed all votes taken by the Kennedy-nominated members.
Kennedy mentioned throughout his speech that he wouldn’t touch upon the choose’s ruling as a result of the case stays in litigation.
