During his Senate confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety, public health experts say. The National Institutes of Health halted funding for…
In a rare sit-down interview with CBS News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, recommended the measles vaccine and said he was “not familiar” with sweeping cuts to state and local public health programs. The conversation was taped shortly after his visit to West Texas, where he attended the funeral of an 8-year-old…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he founded to take down a web page that mimicked the design of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s site but laid out a case that vaccines cause autism. The page had been published on a site apparently registered…
In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments. He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice…
Perhaps no vote was as agonizing for Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and medical doctor, than his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Trump’s health secretary. Mr. Cassidy wondered aloud for days how Mr. Kennedy, the nation’s most vocal and powerful critic of vaccinations, might handle an infectious disease crisis. Now,…