RFK Jr. says he won’t revoke any vaccines. His lawyer may have other plans.
Upon being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. immediately downplayed his connections to the anti-vaccine movement and fears that he would seek to limit access to medicine which saves millions of lives annually.
"We're not going to take vaccines away from anybody. We are going to make sure that Americans have good information right now,” Kennedy told NPR last month following his nomination. Of course, this did come with a dog-whistle inflect caveat.
“The science on vaccine safety particularly has huge deficits, and we're going to make sure those scientific studies are done and that people can make informed choices about their vaccinations and their children's vaccinations," Kennedy added.
But now, according to The New York Times, a key legal figure in Kennedy’s circle could play a large role in how HHS operates. Aaron Siri, Kennedy’s lawyer, will reportedly aid the former presidential candidate in selecting federal health officials to run the department. And Siri’s track record concerning vaccines is troubling to say the least.
“Mr. Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, Covid vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions,” the Times reported.
Most alarming was a recent effort by Siri in 2022 to have the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoke the polio vaccine. The legal petition filed by Siri was done on behalf of Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), a quack “medical freedom” organization run by Del Bigtree — who served as Kennedy’s communications director during his 2024 presidential bid.
Siri’s proximity to power is also concerning because of declining rates of pediatric vaccinations, a product of the broader culture war that engulfed the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, diseases like whooping cough and measles have seen an uptick in recent years, per reports by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
And while RFK Jr. will not be able to unilaterally disrupt vaccinations, because HHS oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the secretary nominee could use his power to influence vaccine requirements. Additionally, the Kennedy scion could edit the CDC’s childhood immunization recommendations, which, while not binding, shape how state-level officials oversee vaccination requirements for schools.