CNN dislikes him, so they show short clips of him saying things that fit their narrative. I’ve watched many of his videos. He’s a common-sense skeptic, not a vaccine denier.
His opinions on vaccines - using his own words - demonstrate he is anti-vaccine. It's not just CNN; we could easily copy/paste many statements he's made undermining confidence in a large number of vaccines. https://www.factcheck.org/2023/11/scicheck-rfk-jr-incorrectl...
I've read his full interviews and I think my understanding of his thinking is pretty accurate.
No, my knowledge is not "driven by" factcheck- it's a reference site that I use as a facts aggregator to support my understanding. My knowledge is driven by my biomedical education and a constant desire to read nearly everything about medical policy at the federal level, from multiple independent sources.
I wish I could peer into your brain and somehow understand why you're so entrenched in this position. The man you are defending has repeatedly said things that prove you wrong, much less everything else.
Some of these replies are from folks who want to stir unrest and don't actually believe what they're saying.
Other folks read selectively; they skim over or ignore the statements they don't agree with.
Yet other folks are ideologically motivated and use rhetoric to convince others.
The best we can do is to counter with well-documented facts, like direct quotes, with full context, and actions taken. In this case, I believe the person we're arguing with is selectively ignoring statements that RFK has made (repeatedly).
Vaccines are powerful tools and they are not without their problems. But RFK has weaponized mistruth in pursuit of his goals.
> Vaccines are powerful tools and they are not without their problems.
That’s exactly the main point of RFK. Have you actually listened to any of his speeches from start to finish without the mainstream media’s intervention?
Where did I defend RFK? I said he’s skeptical of the healthcare industry. He has never been an anti-vaccine activist. Rather, he was an anti-COVID vaccine activist.
Anyone that takes the time to read his direct quotes and listen to his full interviews realizes he's a massive fucking idiot that should be nowhere near governance of any country, agency or otherwise. Like his remarks on autism for example being a big indicator that he knows jack and shit.
Years before Kennedy trained his focus on vaccine issues in Samoa, the small Pacific island nation had been experiencing low vaccination rates. Medical professionals attributed this to a shortage of doctors and nurses as well as demographic shifts, with more people moving to cities and away from social structures that helped promote childhood vaccinations. By 2017, only about half of 1-year-old Samoan children were fully vaccinated — far below the 95% coverage needed to prevent community spread and a steep drop from earlier rates that had reportedly reached 90%.
The situation took a tragic turn in July 2018 when two nurses mistakenly combined an expired muscle relaxant with MMR vaccine doses instead of sterile water, leading to the deaths of two children. The nurses were charged with manslaughter, and the government responded by suspending the national vaccination program for 10 months. Vaccination rates for children dropped to 31%.
[…]
In interviews, Samoan health officials told CBS News they believe Kennedy's actions were unlikely to have directly influenced what occurred.
"It is well documented that RFK Jnr's visit to Samoa in 2019 coincided with increased anti-vaccine sentiment, particularly among certain groups," Samoa's Ministry of Health said in a statement. "However, there is no conclusive evidence that his visit directly contributed to the decline in vaccination rates or the subsequent measles outbreak."
This is a low-quality response. Evidence to the contrary of your belief is a single internet search away, if you could be so kind as to educate yourself before criticizing others for spreading the truth.
It might fit your standards for evidence, but it doesn't hold up to reality. The activities of the Children’s Health Defense and RFK's involvement are well-documented.
First, the article doesn’t say where they got that quote from. There’s zero context - just random words in the middle of the text. It’s extremely low-quality journalism.
Second, please review the author’s articles - https://apnews.com/author/michelle-r-smith - she’s obsessed with RFK. There’s zero positive writing about anything. RFK wants the healthcare industry to be more transparent. He insists on more rigorous testing. These are common sense policy positions that deserve fair analysis. The lack of balanced reporting does a disservice to readers who deserve comprehensive coverage of important health policy debates.
> First, the article doesn’t say where they got that quote from. There’s zero context - just random words in the middle of the text. It’s extremely low-quality journalism.
Because it was widely reported many times since 2021 when he said it in a podcast. It's not lazy journalism; if anything, it seems you are just too lazy to research or corroborate before dismissing things.
He even fucking rants about 5G in this podcast, for a significant period of time. It's just ridiculous. It's non-ionizing radiation. Basic science, easily corroborated. Then he rants about Bill Gates for a couple minutes and tries to paint the EarthNow! project in a completely unfair light. Whether intentional or just ignorant, he's a kook and pushes baseless conspiracies while working with a party who is currently engaging in a literal well-documented conspiracy, Project 2025.
> she’s obsessed with RFK. There’s zero positive writing about anything
What a disingenuous take. Journalists are allowed to have focuses, and their job is not to appease you by making sure that for every 5 negative articles, there must be a positive one. That's not bias; But writing off a journalist for not producing articles that you like is literally bias.
> He insists on more rigorous testing. These are common sense policy positions that deserve fair analysis.
Dude, if that's all it was, we would all be behind him. Unfortunately, whether well-intentioned or not (and I do believe he has good intentions), he pushes a lot of harmful things alongside the less harmful things. Those more harmful things are what people have issue with.
> The lack of balanced reporting
Again, it's your own bias to assume that journalists must be compelled to occasionally paint people in a good light. Would you be saying the same thing about Hitler? "He does have some sensible ideas, why aren't we discussing those and giving him a chance?" Because he's fucking Hitler, and he's a bad person who needs to be taken out of power.
> deserve comprehensive coverage of important health policy debates
Now we are just totally strawmanning. Of course they deserve comprehensive coverage. That's why we have multiple journalism and news outlets and blogs. You can find your comprehensive coverage, from all angles, without demanding that any particular journalist compromise their values in order to appease yours.
