RFK Jr. sought to halt Covid vaccinations 6 months after they were introduced

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s health agencies, formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization of all Covid vaccines during the deadly phase of the pandemic when thousands of Americans were still on alert. He dies every week.

Mr. Kennedy File a petition with the FDA. In May 2021, officials called for the injections to be revoked and to refrain from approving any future Covid vaccine.

Just six months ago, Mr. Trump announced that Covid vaccines would be a vaccine miracle. At the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults had received their doses. Schools reopened and churches were filled.

Estimates are beginning to show that rapid rollout of Covid vaccines has already occurred It saved the lives of about 140 thousand people In the United States.

The petition was submitted on behalf of the non-profit organization founded and led by Mr. Kennedy, Children’s Health Defense. She claimed that the risks of vaccines outweighed the benefits and that vaccines were not necessary because good treatments, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, were already available. It was considered Ineffective against The virus.

The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment and the agency He denied this within months. Public health experts said the recording was shocking.

John Moore, a professor of immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, called Mr. Kennedy’s request to the Food and Drug Administration a “horrible error in judgment.” Greg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, likened Mr. Kennedy’s leadership of federal health agencies to “putting a flat-Earther in charge of NASA.”

Dr. Robert Califf, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, called Mr. Kennedy’s efforts to halt the use of Covid vaccines a “terrible mistake.”

Mr. Kennedy’s spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment, but recently said he did not want his vaccines taken away.

Asked in November By NBC correspondent On his public opposition to Covid vaccines — and whether he would halt licensing — Mr. Kennedy said he was concerned that the vaccines did not prevent transmission of the virus.

“I wouldn’t have blocked him outright,” he said. “I was going to make sure we had the best science, and there was no effort to do that at the time.”

Mr. Kennedy’s early opposition to Covid vaccines has alarmed public health experts, many of whom have maintained that he should be stripped of oversight of health agencies that have the power to license, monitor and allocate funding for millions of vaccines each year.

They are also concerned about how he will handle the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, which could require the rapid deployment of vaccines.

As Mr. Kennedy prepares for his confirmation hearings before two Senate committees, he and his allies have insisted that he is not anti-vaccine.

In fact, in mid-2023, he told a House committee that he had taken all the recommended vaccines — except for the coronavirus vaccination.

In his confirmation hearings, he is likely to face scrutiny of his broader statements about vaccines, including that the polio vaccine has cost more lives than it has saved.

Mr. Trump has come forward in recent weeks to defend Mr. Kennedy after The New York Times reported that one of Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers had previously petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval or halt distribution of several polio vaccines over safety concerns.

“I think it’s going to be a lot less extreme than you think,” Trump said last month.

After the Times report, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kennedy expressed support for the polio vaccine.

If confirmed by the Senate as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy will oversee $8 billion in funding for a vaccine program for children and will have the authority to appoint new members to a committee that makes influential recommendations on vaccines. Countries.

While Mr. Kennedy has challenged Covid vaccines, some of his objections have touched on broader concerns about their rapid development. Emergency use authorization — a preliminary form of approval — for immunizations was unusual. Others argued that the public health emergency forced implementation to be rushed.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Center for Epidemiology at Brown University School of Public Health, said it would be reasonable to debate whether Covid vaccines should undergo additional study.

But she strongly disagreed with Kennedy’s views, saying that “the idea that in early 2021 you could say people over 65 don’t need Covid vaccines — that’s just crazy.”

Vaccines have rare side effects, and there have been cases of infection from Covid shots. Government officials weigh the damage against the possibility of saving lives. that Estimate released in early 2024 It found that COVID vaccines and mitigation measures have saved about 800,000 lives in the United States.

Another study found that in late 2021 and 2022, Covid death rates declined among unvaccinated people. It was 14 times Rates of those who received a Covid booster dose. The researchers also estimated that from May 2021 to September 2022, more than 230,000 deaths were recorded. It could have been prevented Among people who refused initial vaccinations against the Coronavirus.

From the beginning of the Covid vaccine campaign, Mr Kennedy’s view that Covid vaccines were dangerous put him at odds with Mr Trump, whose Operation Warp Speed ​​to develop vaccines was one of his political victories. Mr. Kennedy went on a concerted campaign against the vaccine.

Mr. Kennedy He told Louisiana lawmakers In late 2021, the Covid vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever.”

He remains a plaintiff in a lawsuit against President Biden and others, objecting to efforts by government officials to limit his ability to point out on social media that COVID vaccines are not safe.

In January 2021, Mr. Kennedy suggested on Facebook that the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, 86, was linked to the Covid vaccine he had received 17 days earlier. He claimed it was “part of a wave of suspicious deaths” after Covid vaccinations. The doctor who was vaccinated along with Mr. Aron and the county medical examiner have rejected that claim.

In May, when Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,Remove immediately COVID Vaccines Off the Market,” he was joined by Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of the Children’s Health Defense Scientific Advisory Board and a physician in Maine.

Her medical license was initially suspended on an emergency basis in early 2022 for prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to patients with severe cases of Covid, including one who was intubated, Maine. Medical Board records show.

she He later filed a lawsuit Council, claiming that it retaliated against her for exercising her right to freedom of expression. The case is pending.

In 2022, Mr. Kennedy and others sued the FDA on behalf of Children’s Health Defense and parents who said they were concerned their children were being given COVID vaccines without their knowledge or consent. The amended lawsuit, filed in July 2022, asked for a court order requiring the agency to reconsider granting authorization for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines for children.

The Texas Court of Appeals dismissed the case in early 2024, agreeing with a lower court that the plaintiffs did not face a “concrete or imminent” risk of harm. In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Mr. Kennedy too Messages sent to The US Food and Drug Administration is threatening legal action if the vaccine is licensed for children.

Covid vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna for infants and children ages 6 months to 11 years remain in use under emergency authorization. According to the Food and Drug Administration Spokespeople for Pfizer and Moderna said the companies are seeking full approval for all ages.

Mr. Kennedy claimed in the censorship case that senior Biden administration officials forced social media platforms to silence him, mostly during the summer of 2021. At the time, vaccine rates were stalling. People who were not vaccinated began to die at higher rates. Some of those who died were young. Their loved ones said they were Confusing conflicting messages On social media – or Sorry about that They did not get the vaccine.

Records in the lawsuit specify a briefing that summer with Jen Psaki, The White House The press secretary at the time, and Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, both criticized social media companies for allowing the spread of misinformation that was influencing people against vaccination.

“And we cannot wait any longer for them to take aggressive action because it is costing people their lives,” Dr. Murthy said on July 15, 2021.

Mr. Biden expressed his outrage the next day, telling reporters that social media companies that hosted vaccine misinformation were “killing people.”

In legal submissions, Mr Kennedy said he had been singled out as one of “dozens of misinformation” by someone. Prominent advocacy group – and that he was one of the people the White House was targeting. Exhibits in the lawsuit show that White House officials relied on social media companies to remove misinformation.

Within a month, a senior Facebook executive informed Dr. Murthy that he had removed a number of pages or groups, including Mr. Kennedy’s, court records show.

supreme court It was rejected A related case last summer, and the Court of Appeal dismissed Mr. Kennedy’s case late last year. Lawyers representing Mr. Kennedy and others are still working to obtain depositions from about 30 people, most of them Biden administration officials.

Reporting was contributed by Cheryl J. Stolberg and Dylan Friedman.