Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is routinely described as a "vaccine skeptic" in the news, but pediatrician Paul Offit doesn't think the description fits. In a New York Times essay, Offit describes himself as a vaccine skeptic in his role as a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee. Meaning, he won't give his approval until a pharmaceutical company proves a vaccine's worth. He suggests a different term for the health secretary nominee:
- "Kennedy, on the other hand, is a vaccine cynic, failing to accept studies that refute his beliefs. ... When Mr. Kennedy says he wants vaccines to be better studied, what he really seems to be saying is he wants studies that confirm his fixed, immutable, science-resistant beliefs. That's not skepticism."
Offit, who specializes in infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, runs through Kennedy's various statements and writings about vaccines and offers a series of rebuttals. Parents, of course, "have a right to be skeptical" and to talk things out with their doctor, he adds, but "Kennedy makes these conversations harder" through his misrepresentation of facts. Offit's conclusion: "Given the lack of appropriate guardrails that would normally prevent an anti-vaccine activist, science denialist and conspiracy theorist from heading the country's most important public health agency, it's a dangerous time to be a child in the United States." (Read the full essay.)
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