Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted anti-vaccine activist who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, told NBC News that he would gut funding for federal health agencies that monitor and recommend schedules for childhood vaccines.
Kennedy told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that he believes agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the advisory panels that recommend policies are “sock puppets” for the pharmaceutical and other industries they are tasked with regulating.
The son of US Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy also said that if he became president, he would order the Justice Department to investigate the editors and publishers of medical journals for “lying to the public.”