Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to headline a Washington, D.C. conference hosted by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vaccine advocacy group he chaired for nearly a decade, as reported by Nathaniel Weixel for The Hill. The keynote marks Kennedy’s most visible return yet to an organization he spent much of the past two years insisting he’d left behind.
Kennedy joined CHD in 2015 and led it until December 2024, drawing a six-figure salary along the way. He stepped back during his independent presidential run and cut ties altogether just before President Trump’s inauguration, timing that let him tell senators, during his January 2025 confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, that he no longer had any connection to the group. When Sen. Bernie Sanders pressed him that day about CHD’s “Unvaxxed, Unafraid” baby onesies, Kennedy responded, “I am supportive of vaccines,” and said he had “no power” over the nonprofit’s operations.
CHD, for its part, framed the appearance as a homecoming, welcoming “our founder back to the CHD stage.” Under Kennedy’s former leadership, the group filed dozens of lawsuits challenging state vaccine mandates and has long promoted the scientifically discredited claim linking vaccines to autism, a position that, once relegated to the fringe, has increasingly found an audience inside the Trump administration. CHD attorney Mary Holland and other former colleagues have also landed positions within HHS or attended high-profile MAHA gatherings since Kennedy took office, blurring the line he drew for lawmakers just eight months ago.
