RFK Jr. Was Willing To Spend $5 Billion Of Your Money To Make His Dream Of Proving Vaccines Cause Autism Come True
That's a lot of money for something we already have the answers to!
All Robert F. Kennedy Jr wants, aside from the sweet, sweet chafing of wet jeans on his groin, is proof that vaccines cause autism. He wants it to be true more than you or I have ever wanted anything in our lives. He needs it to be true. Because if it’s not true (spoiler: it’s not true) an absolute fuckton of children have gotten sick or even died because he convinced their parents that it is.
As of July 9, there have been 2,231 documented cases of measles in the United States — 51 more, and we’ll surpass the total number of cases last year, which had the highest number of measles cases since 1991. Now, as far as we’re concerned, that’s not very good news, but we’re not Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who must be pretty jazzed about it, given that it’s a sign that vaccination rates have significantly decreased.
A recent report from Reuters alleges that RFK Jr tried to secure a whole five billion dollars — ten percent of the entire budget of the National Institutes Health — to “investigate” the theory that vaccines cause autism, a thing that has been disproven many, many times over, as several enormous metastudies have confirmed.
Alas, his dreams were reportedly dashed after NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya convinced him that the $50 million the agency was already spending on his pet project was enough (for now).
It’s hard to imagine that there is any actual point to investigating this, beyond Kennedy’s belief that doing so would result in his being vindicated and all of the scientists who had been mean to him for so long having to eat crow, or whatever dead animal he’s most recently scooped up from the side of the road. If there were the smallest chance that he and others would be convinced that they are wrong, by any study on earth, the five billion dollars would almost be worth it for the lives it would save both here and around the world. Because it’s not even just American children that Kennedy is a danger to — just last month, he pulled all US funding for Gavi, a global vaccine alliance that has vaccinated over 1.1 billion children from low-income countries over the last 25 years.
But there isn’t. Hell, he could personally supervise a thousand studies on the subject and still be dead convinced that something was wrong with them, somehow, if they failed to produce his desired results.
Reuters spoke to 16 current and former officials familiar with Kennedy’s bullshit, who told them that Kennedy’s attempts at vaccine fuckery have gone far deeper than previously reported. For instance, while we know he tried to reduce the childhood vaccine schedule, he actually wanted there to be no vaccine schedule at all, and for all vaccines to be left to "shared clinical decision-making," meaning that parents would talk to their child’s health providers and then decide which vaccines their kids should get.
However, this reportedly “alarmed” even then-FDA chief Marty Makary, and the whole plan was scrapped.
Kennedy has also heavily relied on the advice of fellow anti-vaccine activist and lawyer Aaron Siri.
Via Reuters:
Siri has repeatedly argued that many childhood vaccines have been recommended by the CDC without sufficient safety data. In 2019, he filed a lawsuit against the CDC demanding it produce studies demonstrating that vaccines routinely given to infants don't cause autism, or admit it did not have such studies. Both sides agreed to dismiss the lawsuit after the CDC produced a list of studies. Siri says that the research the agency provided did not disprove a link to autism for those shots.
Of course he did.
Siri, who coincidentally makes his living representing parents who believe their children have “vaccine injuries,” has been pushing to have even more “vaccine side effects” recognized by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which would allow him to file even more lawsuits on behalf of his clients.
Siri’s firm represents people who say they have been harmed by vaccines and is currently litigating over 400 pending VICP claims, according to Westlaw data. In March, Siri filed a petition on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network — a group that has continually attacked vaccine safety — asking Kennedy to add over 300 types of injuries to VICP, including several conditions related to autism.
Richard Hughes IV, the lead attorney suing HHS on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics over the childhood vaccine schedule changes, said he disagrees with Siri’s petition, believing it would bloat VICP with inappropriate injuries.
Which, obviously, it would.
Want to send us money in an entirely different way? Click here or join our Patreon!
Curiously enough, studies have actually shown that children who have had all of their proper vaccines have lower rates of autism than those who have not — and by a lot. The largest of these studies found that found that “80% of children with autism received all vaccines recommended for children between ages 4 and 6, versus 94% among children without autism.” Parents ceasing to vaccinate their kids after an autism diagnosis could certainly account for some of this, and we wouldn’t argue that not being vaccinated causes autism, because we understand that correlation is not causation, but it’s still pretty interesting.
If the fact of there not being higher rates of autism in vaccinated children versus vaccinated children isn’t enough to convince Kennedy and his anti-vax pals that they are wrong about this, it’s hard to imagine that anything — even if they did spend $5 billion on studies — possibly could.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
In an OT NICE TIMES distraction from that idiot and his brain worm and heroin wrecked brain...
It's my birthday tomorrow.
The birthday cake is in the oven, I should have plenty of time go get it filled and decorated tonight so it's all ready for my birthday tomorrow.
I've gone for a simple Victoria sponge cake, filled with strawberry jam, fresh strawberries, and vanilla buttercream. I'm going to frost it with some more vanilla buttercream, then top it with Chantilly cream, more strawberries (dipped in chocolate), and a drizzle of dark chocolate.
The thing is, no amount of "there's no link between vaccines and autism" will ever be enough. This is an article of faith for him.