by Melinda Moulton
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is making a mess of our healthcare system. Personal to me is his attack on Americans with autism. Just the other day he demanded a Danish paper that found no link between vaccines and autism retract their study. This study which was “published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in July of 2025" is the most comprehensive of its kind and included 1.2 million children living during the past two decades in Denmark.”
Science has proven that vaccines do not cause autism and yet RFK, Jr. with the support of Donald Trump is beating this drum because he inherently is anti-vaccine. World Health Organization has seen measles cases surge worldwide, and RFK, Jr. has a long history of pushing out misinformation about vaccines as well as other medical positions of which he has no education or experience. He is known for promoting conspiracy theories and he is one of the leading spreaders of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation according to the Brookings Institute. And yet, this is the man who is heading up our Department of Health and Human Services. Ashish Jha, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator under the Biden Administration called out RFK, Jr. “this is wacky, flat-earth, voodoo stuff, people.
This is not "normal.” More than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter which criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.
The American Public Health Association on August 28th, 2025, sent out a press release “Kennedy’s attack on public health must be stopped.” They went on to call on President Trump to step in and protect the American people by removing RFK, Jr. from his position and appoint a true public health leader – someone committed to science, integrity, and the well-being of our nation.
But Trump is never going to do that because he is complicit and believes much of the hooey that RFK, Jr. espouses. The New York Times reported on August 29th, 2025, that these two men have aligning views about public health. At the recent cabinet meeting Trump commended RFK, Jr’s efforts to tie autism to vaccines. Trump is up to his eyeballs in this misinformation and his slap on the back “attaboy” of Kennedy feeds right into the psyche of his MAGA followers who have been brainwashing to oppose health mandates and vaccines.
John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reported back in March of 2025 that Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism and how a retracted study from the 1990’s undermined the trust in vaccines and led to this persistent myth.
The article goes on to state that “the science has been done and has shown that vaccines are very safe”. The Center for Disease Control noted on August 27th, 2025, that measles is on the uptick and was reported in 43 jurisdictions.
The Harvard Health newsletter written by Robert H. Smerling, MD., on August 20, 2025, reported that measles is making a comeback. He notes that we halted the spread of the disease more than 20 years ago which was a major health achievement. Prior to that almost every child in the country got measles and 400 to 500 people died each year. They note that there have been 1,375 cases confirmed in 41 states. The biggest outbreak is in Texas.
But how can we convince people to get vaccinated when they hear our government pooh vaccines. These folks bow down to Trumpism and follow RFK, Jr’s reckless claims that vaccines are dangerous. They are the unvaccinated citizens who will be hurt the most by the present Administration’s unwillingness to follow science-based medical protocols, policies, and procedures.
Remember it was Trump who told folks to drink bleach during COVID. NPR on April of 2020 reported that poison control centers were seeing an uptick in calls after Trump suggested people drink disinfectants for COVID.
Well, here we are again but this time we have RFK, Jr. perched on top of our Department of Health and Human Services, destroying the Centers for Disease Control by firing qualified and honest people who are steeped in science and reality. Right now, RFK, Jr. is working on a report to manipulate numbers to blame vaccines on autism. He hired longtime vaccine critic Dr. David Geier (a died in the wool antivaccine activist) to lead the study. What could go wrong??
Here is some good news. NBC Boston reported on August 22, 2025, that northeastern states are considering a regional approach to vaccine guidance. “The states of Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania met to consider coordinating their own vaccine recommendations separate from the U. S. Government.”
This all came about because health professionals fear that Kennedy is making false, inaccurate, and unquantified decisions about our country’s health care. RFK, Jr. pulled $500 million in federal dollars from 22 projects doing research to fight respiratory viruses. All of this research uses mRNA technology, which made it possible to develop the COVID vaccine. We are living in challenging times Vermont, so keep your eyes open, don’t believe everything you hear, listen to your doctor, get yourselves and your families vaccinated, and vote so we can return to a Federal Government that values truth, science, democracy, freedom, and citizen health and wellbeing.
Melinda Moulton is a community leader, activist, writer and filmmaker from Huntington.
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