RFK Jr shifts from MMR warnings to urging parents to vaccinate as measles returns

The health secretary now blames missed routine immunisations for rising measles cases, despite years of campaigning against the MMR vaccine and questioning its safety.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years as one of the most visible critics of childhood vaccination, particularly the measles, mumps and rubella shot. Yet as health secretary, he now tells parents to follow the very immunisation schedule he once cast as dangerous, while blaming recent measles cases on gaps in vaccination coverage that emerged during the Covid pandemic. The shift has sharpened attention on the gap between Kennedy’s past activism and his current public health message.

Speaking in Virginia Beach last week, Kennedy linked the return of measles to missed routine vaccinations during the pandemic and said the outbreak was unfolding globally. In comments reported by CNN earlier this year, he also denied that his long record of vaccine scepticism had fuelled hesitancy, instead pointing to children who missed scheduled doses and to communities that do not vaccinate for religious reasons. But his own history tells a different story: as founder of Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy helped drive years of controversy around MMR safety, backed legal efforts aimed at vaccine litigation, defended Andrew Wakefield and co-authored books arguing that the risks of measles vaccination had been understated.

That earlier campaign was built on a broader challenge to the official account of measles and vaccine policy. Children’s Health Defense has long argued that measles was historically less dangerous than public health agencies later portrayed it to be, citing older research and mortality trends that pre-dated the first measles vaccine in 1963. It has also questioned standard estimates of complications and deaths, and pointed to the vaccine maker’s own product insert, which lists a range of adverse events. The organisation has used those arguments to contend that the central issue is not vaccine refusal but a vaccine that does not always provide lasting protection.

The controversy has widened with recent measles deaths and with the way Kennedy has discussed vaccine safety since taking office in February 2025. Children’s Health Defense has challenged official explanations of deaths attributed to recent outbreaks, arguing in some cases that other infections, medical complications or treatment errors played the decisive role. Kennedy, meanwhile, has since urged MMR vaccination in op-eds and public remarks, calling it crucial to preventing serious illness. He has also continued to stop short of the full-throated endorsement sought by many vaccine experts, even as his department maintains the two-dose recommendation for children and the federal government continues buying MMR vaccines through the Vaccines for Children programme.