Private emails show RFK Jr. making false claims about Covid-19 shots, linking vaccines to autism
Kerry Kennedy-Meltzer, niece to the HHS nominee and a physician, shared the exchanges with STAT in an effort to stop her uncle’s confirmation
On the eve of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings, his physician niece has shared a trove of private emails in the hopes of derailing his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
The exchanges show RFK Jr. making false claims about Covid-19 vaccines at the height of the pandemic, citing online articles by fellow vaccine skeptics, linking childhood immunizations to autism, and raising doubts about the flu shot. The emails span more than two years, starting in late 2020. While many of his controversial beliefs have been publicly examined, the emails — provided to STAT on Tuesday — show him in unguarded, personal moments.
His niece, Kerry Kennedy-Meltzer, a primary care physician at NYC Health + Hospitals in New York City, told STAT that she had struggled with whether to release the emails publicly, knowing that they could further stir “family drama.” But in the end she said she decided it was vital for the public — and U.S. senators — to better understand what she described as her uncle’s misguided views and conspiracy theories.
As President Trump’s top health official, RFK Jr. would have broad power to shape U.S. vaccination policy, and a bully pulpit from which he could discourage — or encourage — people to get vaccinated. Both Republican and Democratic senators have expressed concerns about Kennedy’s history of criticizing vaccines, and he is likely to face probing questions on the topic in his hearings.
In the exchanges, Meltzer takes care to be respectful, even solicitous, of RFK Jr., sometimes expressing her love for him.
“Bobby, I’ve been working in the ICU for the past two weeks and have taken care of too many people who have died, or will likely die soon, from Covid. None of them are vaccinated,” she wrote in an email dated Feb. 12, 2022. “I watched a daughter collapse on the floor while we pronounced her mother’s time of death. I held the hand of a man who was about to get intubated. He looked at me with tears in his eyes, asking me to please save him. He will likely die in the coming days.”
She wrote at the end: “I love you Bobby. You are an inspiration to so many and are giving voice to people who feel they have experienced injustice. I just wish I could take you to my ICU, and show you how much destruction this disease has caused.”
That same day, Kennedy responded: “Kerry. I don’t dismiss your experience but it differs with data we are seeing from Israel, UK and other nations with much more reliable data systems. You might want to ask your hospital to publish this data so that people can take it seriously. That problem is that CDC has been using corrupt metrics to assess who is vaccinated. CDC counts all people as ‘unvaccinated’ until two weeks after their second shot. We have seen dramatically increased cases and mortalities in the two weeks following the first shot and CDC counts these as unvaccinated.”
RFK Jr. and representatives for the Trump transition, White House, and HHS did not respond to requests for comment.
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