Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t want to talk about his past as a leader of the anti-vaccine movement. But as he made his case to be the nation’s top health official, the anti-vaccine movement couldn’t wait to talk about him.
The head of Children’s Health Defense — the anti-vaccine nonprofit that Kennedy founded — praised Kennedy’s performance in front of the Senate Finance Committee on January 29, calling it a moment of vindication for a movement that until now had existed on the fringes of mainstream politics.
“Bobby is challenging the status quo,” Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, told POLITICO. “We’re very happy with the greater attention — and we hope to educate more people that there are issues around a lot of things that people don’t often think about.”
“I’ve worked with Bobby for a long time. He has always said, ‘I am not anti-vaccine, I want there to be real science, I want there to be transparency and I want there to be choice,’” Holland said.
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“The children that are unvaccinated are healthier,” Holland said, adding that she had gotten measles, mumps and rubella as a child. “For a healthy child, it actually helps build the immune system.”
