{"id":349752,"date":"2026-09-17T23:52:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T23:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349752\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T23:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T23:52:27","slug":"rfk-jr-gives-keynote-at-anti-vaccine-conference-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349752\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. gives keynote at anti-vaccine conference \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote address Thursday at a conference of an anti-vaccine activist group<\/a> he once chaired, telling the hundreds in attendance that they had a friend in President Donald Trump’s White House.<\/p>\n

It was Kennedy’s first time appearing at the Children’s Health Defense conference since he became secretary. Kennedy took leave from the group when he launched his bid to become president in 2023, but his speech Thursday served as a sort of homecoming, offering him a platform from which to hail the administration’s steps to scale back vaccine guidance and reassure the activists in attendance that he was working to turn their priorities into policy. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White House. We’ve accomplished in 19 months things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The speech, peppered with questions about long established vaccine safety, also highlighted how once fringe views on vaccines have been given a prominent pulpit under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Kennedy boasted about the administration’s moves to downsize the childhood vaccination schedule and reshape a key vaccine advisory board \u2014 steps that have since been halted by a judge.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPresident Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, advising states revise their recommended childhood vaccine schedule over unproven allegations that vaccines cause autism. There is no credible scientific evidence that vaccines, including the MMR vaccine, lead to autism.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kennedy lauded Trump for pushing ahead with attempts to overhaul vaccine guidance, including an executive order <\/a>last month calling for spacing out the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, against medical groups’ recommendations.<\/p>\n

That executive order and now Kennedy’s keynote speech at the Children’s Health Defense conference mark a pivot by the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, who earlier this year had appeared to be moving beyond vaccine efforts and toward a less contentious agenda on healthy food ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections. HHS promoted the speech on its social media channels.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, chaired Children\u2019s Health Defense for years. He served as the group\u2019s chief legal counsel and expanded it. After becoming health secretary last year, Kennedy moved at a blistering pace to overhaul public health guidance and revamp long-held precedents in vaccine policymaking.<\/p>\n

Critics, among them many of the country’s top medical associations, have said the moves risk stoking vaccine hesitancy and sowing confusion among Americans who endured a crisis of trust in their public health agencies following the COVID-19 pandemic. That public confidence continues to erode.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not taken vaccines away from anybody. We have preserved access. But we have started asking the questions that you and millions of American parents have been asking for years,\u201d Kennedy told the group. <\/p>\n

Mary Holland, the CEO of Children\u2019s Health Defense, referred to Kennedy as \u201cBobby\u201d and said the group has \u201cgratitude beyond words\u201d to the HHS secretary for \u201crecognizing there are real consequential issues around childhood vaccinations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kennedy’s appearance Thursday comes as the country faces its worst year for measles since 1991<\/a> and has seen seven reported measles-associated deaths in the last two years \u2014 more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania officials have reported four measles-associated deaths<\/a> this year. None of the four were vaccinated, according to the state health department. When state officials last month announced the first two of those deaths, it ignited a public feud between Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Shapiro blasted Kennedy’s appearance on the social media site X Thursday, saying Kennedy \u201cchose to spend his time today addressing the premier vaccine-denial conference in America.\u201d <\/p>\n

Shapiro said the HHS secretary should have encouraged people to get vaccinated for measles, “yet he couldn\u2019t bring himself to do it. Instead, he pushed a narrative that continues to stoke fear and mistrust.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative from the White House did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment on Kennedy\u2019s appearance at the event. <\/p>\n

Following Kennedy onstage Thursday was Andrew Wakefield, an author of a since-discredited study that linked the MMR vaccine to autism, which has fueled the anti-vaccine movement even though it was retracted.<\/p>\n

Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism.<\/p>\n

Shaughnessy Naughton, founder of 314 Action, a group that recruits scientists to run for public office, said Kennedy’s decision to give a speech at the conference shows \u201cthe lack of seriousness he brings to HHS.\u201d <\/p>\n

“With a deadly measles outbreak killing people in Pennsylvania, the best thing Kennedy can do for Americans is step aside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote address Thursday at a conference of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,27254],"class_list":["post-349752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}