The brother and sister of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused him of spreading misinformation about vaccines



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A brother, sister and niece of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reprimanded him on Wednesday for his campaign against vaccines, claiming he was spreading a "dangerous misinformation" that discourages vaccination even as measles spreads across the United States.

They said that they liked it and praised his work for the protection of the environment. "However, he is wrong about vaccines," they wrote in a column published in Politico under the title "RFK Jr. is our brother and our uncle. He is tragically wrong about vaccines. "

Mr. Kennedy's sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland; his brother, Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former member of the Massachusetts Congress; and her niece, Maeve Kennedy McKean, executive director of Georgetown University's Global Health Initiatives, blame her for participating in social media campaigns that fuel fear and mistrust of vaccines and attack institutions public health agencies seeking to halt the spread of infectious diseases.

Kennedy, a lawyer, author and environmental activist, said in a statement, "I am not anti-vaccine. I want safe vaccines with robust safety tests. "

Mr. Kennedy is Chairman of the Board of Children's Health Defense. Its website links the rising number of chronic childhood diseases such as asthma, autism and diabetes to a variety of factors, including environmental toxins, pesticides and vaccines.

The group offers information and videos about food allergy vaccines, saying vaccines against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus kill people and that media coverage of the measles outbreak has been "orchestrated" by 'World Health Organization.

In their article, Mr. Kennedy's relatives generally adopted a temperate tone, but they indicated that the researchers had concluded that there was no link between vaccines and autism and that their family has long been committed to making vaccination an essential tool for improving the public. health.

They pointed out that President John F. Kennedy, in 1961, had urged Americans to take advantage of a new "miraculous" polio vaccine; in 1962, he signed the Vaccination Assistance Act to ensure that all American children are vaccinated.

"On this issue, Bobby is a special case in the Kennedy family," they wrote.

The United States is currently experiencing the worst measles outbreak since the disease was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. As of Monday, 764 cases had been identified in 23 states, most of them in people who had never been vaccinated.

Government health officials have urged parents to vaccinate their children if they have not already done so, and they urge Americans to get vaccinated before traveling abroad.

Mr. Kennedy's relatives wrote that his anti-vaccine messages had "heartbreaking" or even deadly consequences.

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