RFK Jr Provides an Update to His Anti-Vaccine Agenda On the Tucker Carlson Show
And once again shows that he has to go before too much damage is done.
Have you noticed that RFK Jr only does interviews with media friendly folks that he knows won’t question any of his anti-vaccine misinformation or propaganda? And that is exactly what he got when he went on the Tucker Carlson Show.
Like his appearances on Fox News, this internet show was a perfect opportunity for RFK Jr to update folks on his anti-vaccine agenda.
RFK Jr Provides an Update to His Anti-Vaccine Agenda On the Tucker Carlson Show
Oh yes, while there was no doubt RFK Jr has been pushing an anti-vaccine agenda since taking over HHS, the Tucker Carlson interview should squash any last hopes of those who had any doubts.
And that’s easy to see from the get-go.
Tucker Carlson: “I remember your first break with the Democratic party and with personal friends, even members of your family was a Rolling Stone piece that you wrote about autism, asking why have autism rates risen? And you were kind of written out of polite society for doing that.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
For example, how does Tucker Carlson bring up his “Rolling Stone piece” without mentioning that Deadly Immunity was quickly retracted because it was “error-laced” and so full of misinformation?
Or let RFK Jr talk about a “secret” CDC study that supposedly found an 1,135% elevated risk of autism in vaccinated children.
“Recently, Kennedy has been highlighting a statistic of dubious origins that he claims is derived from an even earlier version of Verstraeten’s work. He told Rogan, for instance, “What he [Verstraeten] found in his first run through the data is there was an 1,135% greater or elevated risk for an autism diagnosis among the kids who had gotten it [the hepatitis B vaccine] in their first 30 days. At that point, they knew what caused the autism epidemic.” Kennedy also refers to these children as having a relative risk for autism of 11.35, which converts to a 1,035% increased risk.”
What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism
That’s not true.
And if you are not aware, this whole “secret” CDC study thing is simply about the Simpsonwood conspiracy, something RFK Jr talked about in his Deadly Immunity article…
“Although the decision had been made in 1999 to remove thimoerosal from childhood vaccines, the decision hadn’t been fully implemented yet, and the CDC wanted to determine whether there was any cause for concern. It was hardly the action of a group that wanted to “cover up” anything, particularly the bit about publishing the entire transcript. None of this, however, prevented antivaccine activists, particularly the branch known as the “mercury militia” for its affinity for the set of antivaccine beliefs associated with mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism, from dreaming up all manner of conspiracy theories, with the CDC meeting in a “secret” location to cackle over the “autism epidemic,” rubbing their hands together gleefully as they plotted to create a generation of autistic children.”
Acid flashbacks to antivaccine conspiracy theories from nine years ago
Seems like RFK Jr just can’t let it go that his article was retracted and all of his theories were debunked!
But think about it…
If ‘they’ had found the cause for autism way back in the late 1990s - thimerosal in the hepatitis B vaccine - then why did rates of autism continue to rise even after thimerosal was removed from nearly all childhood vaccines?
How does that make sense?
And how does it make sense that RFK Jr will have definitive answers on what causes autism in six months?
RFK Jr: “And within six months, we'll have definitive answers after September.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Unless of course he has already decided that it’s vaccines…
RFK Jr: “And also the journals won't publish anything that is, is critical of vaccines. They just, they, they won't do it because the, there's so much pressure on them.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Something you can expect, especially considering that the rest of the interview were basically anti-vaccine points refuted a thousand times already.
RFK Jr: “There's a, a published article out there now that says that 50% of of revenues to most pediatricians come from, from vaccines.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Sure, pediatricians, the lowest paid medical professionals are just raking it in on vaccines!
Not even close…
“We conclude that the vaccination portion of the business model for primary care pediatric practices that serve private-pay patients results in little or no profit from vaccine delivery. When losses from vaccinating publicly insured children are included, most practices lose money.”
Net financial gain or loss from vaccination in pediatric medical practices
And there is no published study or article that says pediatricians get 50% of their revenue from vaccines.
RFK Jr: “And then there's a whole structure where Blue Cross and the other insurance companies pay bonuses to the pediatrician to make sure if, for example, 95% of their, if their clients are fully vaccinated, they get a huge bonuses. It could be tens of thousands of dollars. And that's why your pediatrician, if you say, I wanna go slow on the vaccines, or I wanna have a little different schedule, your pediatrician will throw you out of his practice because you're now jeopardizing that bonus structure.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
And while vaccine bonuses do exist, they are hardly huge and few pediatricians get them.
Tucker Carlson: “One of the reasons that there hasn't been much of a discussion, you said there were signals in 1999 that there was a connection between autism and vaccines. The response from the American media was just to throw you out, take away your New York Times presence. Yeah. Ban you from Rolling Stone, et cetera, attack you as a Nazi. You made the point years later that the reason that happened was because pharmaceutical companies are the single biggest source of revenue for a lot of media companies. And they're buying the protection with that money.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
That main stream media organizations stopped promoting anti-vaccine propaganda has nothing to do with ad revenues.
It is simply that they learned from their mistakes after the DPT media scares in the 1970s and 80s and the Andrew Wakefield MMR scandal.
They learned that vaccine scare stories in the media, fueled by anecdotal reports and false balance in their reporting, helped scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
And unlike RFK Jr, they learned to do more thorough research, instead of believing every anti-vaccine conspiracy theory that came along.
RFK Jr: “Well, that's gonna be complicated because in 1986, Congress passed an act, the Vaccine Act, the on National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. That, and they, and they gave the vaccine company's immunity from liability. So you, no matter how reckless the company is, no matter how toxic the product, no matter how egregious your injury, you cannot sue them. And that's one of the problems is, and that actually is why we, one of the reasons we had this explosion of the vaccination program when, you know, when I was a kid, we only had three vaccines.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
For example, as a lawyer, he should know that vaccine manufacturer’s can be sued if they did something that was negligent or shown to be “reckless.” He has been involved in some of these lawsuits that he says can’t happen!
Their liability protection doesn’t protect them from reckless acts anyway, and it doesn’t even mean that you can’t sue them!
Speaking of reckless acts… RFK Jr next talks about an ‘explosion in the vaccination program,’ blaming vaccines for a rise in epidemic diseases, and never once credits these vaccines for helping to control vaccine preventable diseases.
RFK Jr: “And that's one of the problems is, and that actually is why we, one of the reasons we had this explosion of the vaccination program when, you know, when I was a kid, we only had three vaccines… And the reason it's 69 to 82 is some of the vaccines have, are, are the different brands have different dose requirements. So some will require three doses, some will require one dose, some will require four doses. But that's a lot of vaccines for a kid. And each one of those is calculated is, is designed to permanently alter your immune system. And so we have now this epidemic of immune dysregulation in our country, you know, and there's no way to rule out vaccines as one of the key culprits. And if you look at all of these diseases that have become epidemic - diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, all of these seizure disorders, the neurological disorders like A-D-D-A-D-H-D, speech delay, language delay, tics, Tourette syndrome, narcolepsy, ASD, autism, all the diseases you never saw when we were kids.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
All the diseases that RFK Jr never saw as a kid!
Where were all the autistic kids and adults when RFK Jr was a kid?
Well, we didn’t see changes to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) that would broaden the criteria used to diagnose autism until 1980. You didn’t see them as much before that because they weren’t yet diagnosed with autism and many were institutionalized or hidden at home.
RFK Jr: “That those studies that I was talking about earlier, the epidemiological studies, they only looked at one vaccine. The MMR and one ingredient, thimerosal, the none of the vaccines that are, are administered to children during the first six months of life have ever been studied for autism.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
That vaccines are not associated with autism has been well studied, but the idea that only one vaccine or one ingredient was studied just shows how anti-vaccine influencers move the goal posts when given evidence that disproves their ideas.
RFK Jr: “And it was a long-term study. And they looked at one HMO, which was Harvard Pilgrim in Massachusetts. And they did, they did this, this machine counting system for Harvard Pilgrim. And then they compared what the machine counting system had gotten, you know, had yielded and collected in terms of vaccine injuries. And they compare that to what VAs had collected during the same period at Harvard Pilgrim. And they said that VAs was capturing fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Kennedy also demonstrates how these folks mischaracterize and cherry-picks studies to fit their agenda.
The Harvard Pilgrim VAERS study was hardly a long-term study. It wasn’t even finished! And while it did find that few side effects were reported, it also found that most side effects were mild.
But RFK Jr doesn’t mention other studies that found that serious side effects were almost always reported to VAERS!
RFK Jr also brings up the Pfizer COVID placebo conspiracy theory, something that has been explained because he is looking at deaths in the placebo group that occurred after the blinded period.
RFK Jr: And as you know, there was just data chaos with the other vaccine. In fact, you know, the, the Pfizer vaccine when it came out, it, it should, it, it had a higher all cause mortality. So more people died in the placebo group. I mean more people died in the vaccine group than in the placebo group. I had 20,000 people who got the vaccine, 20,000 who didn't. And after six months they looked at it and there was 23% more deaths in the vaccinated group from all causes than in the placebo group.
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Kennedy also rehashes the idea that Paul Offit made hundreds of millions of dollars on a rotavirus vaccine he developed.
RFK Jr: “Right. And he, he, he then he and his business partners, Stanley Plotkin and you know, a couple of other people sold that vaccine and to Merck for $186 million. He told Newsweek that he won the lottery. Oh. You know, it's been said of him that he voted himself rich. So that, and that kind of conflict was typical on that committee”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
The only problem with that idea is that the hospital system he worked for owned the patent on the vaccine and made most of that money, not Offit!
And while he did tell Newsweek that it was “like winning the lottery,” he was referring to getting the “small percentage of the $182 million Children's Hospital of Philadelphia received when it sold its interest in future royalties for the vaccine RotaTeq.”
A vaccine that has kept kids from getting sick with rotavirus and has saved lives!
One of many vaccines that we have that are saving lives.
RFK Jr: “We went from 11, remember to 69 to 92 11 vaccines in 86. And not one of them had, except for COVID. COVID is the only one that had a pre-licensing safety trial that involved a placebo, a true placebo. And so all of those other vaccines were ushered in without safety studies. And that means nobody understands the risk profile of those products.“
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
But RFK Jr mischaracterizes everything about those vaccines.
We don’t have 69-92 vaccines.
Kids don’t get 69-92 doses of vaccines.
And all vaccines have been well tested, including having safety studies and placebo controlled trials when appropriate.
With Kennedy the only one who doesn’t understand their risk profiles…
RFK Jr: “And a lot of these vaccines are for diseases that are not even casually contagious, you know, how are you, you know, I mean the, you know, they recommended the hepatitis B vaccines for, for babies when they're an hour old, the first day of life, they get that. And, you know, hepatitis B, if your mother's got it, you, you should get it. And you can, you know, you can pass through maternal transmission, but every mother that goes in the hospital in this country is tested for it.”
RFK Jr. Provides an Update on His Mission to End Skyrocketing Autism and Declassifying Kennedy Files
Are you surprised that RFK Jr wants to go after the birth dose of hepatitis B?
You shouldn’t be.
His new ACIP committee has set up a new working group to look at the vaccine…
But while he thinks the vaccine isn’t needed because mothers are tested for hepatitis B infections, he fails to mention that a non-universal immunization program didn’t work when it was tried before. And that the universal hepatitis B vaccination program prevents thousands of cases of congenital hepatitis B each year. Infections which often become chronic and lead to liver failure and liver cancer!
And while it is bad enough to hear so much misinformation about vaccines from Secretary RFK Jr in these interviews, it is just as bad as he never once mentions any of the benefits of vaccines.
Notice that you never hear about all the lives saved by vaccines or why vaccines are necessary.
Or all the sickness that is prevented because kids are vaccinated and protected.
Which is why you are hearing more and more calls for Secretary RFK Jr to resign or be fired!
References
Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, Lieu TA, Rhodes PH, Black SB, Shinefield H, Chen RT; Vaccine Safety Datalink Team. Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases. Pediatrics. 2003 Nov;112(5):1039-48. Erratum in: Pediatrics. 2004 Jan;113(1):184. PMID: 14595043.
What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism https://www.factcheck.org/2023/08/scicheck-what-rfk-jr-gets-wrong-about-autism/
Coleman MS, Lindley MC, Ekong J, Rodewald L. Net financial gain or loss from vaccination in pediatric medical practices. Pediatrics. 2009 Dec;124 Suppl 5:S472-91. doi: 10.1542/peds.2009-1542G. PMID: 19948579.