{"id":314487,"date":"2026-10-26T12:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314487\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T12:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:02:07","slug":"rfk-jr-s-control-group-by-paul-offit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314487\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr.\u2019s \u201cControl Group\u201d – by Paul Offit"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 31, 2021, RFK Jr. spoke<\/a> to a packed crowd of 1,500 people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home to a large Amish and Mennonite population. \u201cWhen I was asked to come here today,\u201d he began, \u201cit wasn\u2019t convenient for me, but I really wanted to\u2026not so much to teach, but to learn\u2026We can all learn from the Amish [about] how to live our lives without allowing technology to become our masters.\u201d He praised the Amish for rejecting the notion that \u201cgood health only comes in a syringe.\u201d<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. went on to explain his fascination with the Amish. \u201cWe did a film about mercury in vaccines,\u201d he said. \u201cWe came down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and interviewed a doctor here who ran a big, big clinic. He said, \u2018yeah, I\u2019ve never seen autism among the Amish. We don\u2019t have it.\u201d RFK Jr. congratulated the crowd for their choice not to vaccinate themselves or their children, which he believed prevented them from suffering chronic disorders like autism. \u201cThe CDC was angry at that,\u201d said Kennedy Jr. \u201cThe Amish are our control group and they cannot stand it. And that\u2019s why those agencies are going to do everything in their power to make the Amish get vaccinated. It is a thorn in their side that there is a group of people in this country who are not chronically ill.\u201d According to RFK Jr., by choosing not to vaccinate themselves and their children, the Amish had made the healthier choice\u2014and the CDC couldn\u2019t tolerate it.<\/p>\n

To RFK Jr., the Amish had proved his point\u2014no vaccines equaled no autism. But RFK Jr. was worried that his perfect control group was at risk of being harmed by federal public health agencies. \u201cI have a warning to all of you people who are Amish here today,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are coming for you. Because they can\u2019t stand the fact that you are healthy and there\u2019s a control group that the rest of us can point to and say to the government officials, \u2018You guys are doing something wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, about ten years before RFK Jr. had visited Lancaster County, a study<\/a> of about 1,900 Amish children in Ohio and Indiana found a rate of autism of at least 1 in 271 children, contradicting RFK Jr.\u2019s claim. Although RFK Jr. was wrong about the incidence of autism among the Amish, he was right about two things:<\/p>\n

First, RFK Jr. was right that public health officials \u201cwould soon be coming for them.\u201d But not for the reason he had imagined. In 2026, five years after RFK Jr. had visited Lancaster County, a large measles epidemic<\/a> engulfed Amish and Mennonite communities in Pennsylvania\u2019s Lancaster, Jefferson, and Mifflin counties. Health officials recorded at least 1,300 cases, 250 hospitalizations, and 6 deaths. The epidemic launched an \u201call-hands-on-deck\u201d strategy to vaccinate as many children in these communities as possible, fulfilling RFK Jr.\u2019s prophecy that \u201cthey are coming for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. was also right that the Amish had become \u201cthe control group that the CDC didn\u2019t want you to know about.\u201d Four years after that visit to Lancaster County, RFK Jr. was sworn in as Secretary of Health and Human Services. And, as he had predicted, the Amish had become \u201cthe control group that the CDC didn\u2019t want you to know about.\u201d Or at least the control group that RFK Jr. didn\u2019t want us to know about. With RFK Jr. in charge, the CDC failed<\/a> to accurately record the number of Amish and Mennonite people on its website who had died from measles. RFK Jr. didn\u2019t want us to know how effective his 20-year campaign against vaccines had been.<\/p>\n

During the current measles epidemic in Pennsylvania, RFK Jr. hasn\u2019t return to Lancaster County to praise them for their decision not to vaccinate themselves and their children.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading Beyond the Noise! This post is public so feel free to share it.<\/p>\n

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