Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. found himself in the hot seat on Friday when he spoke with CNN’s Kasie Hunt about his stance on vaccines.
Hunt began questioned Kennedy, laying out his background. “You have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines, and over the summer, in an interview, you said, quote, ‘There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.’ Do you still believe that?”
Kennedy responded, “I never said that,” but before he could continue, Hunt stopped him and said they have the clip, which she then tossed to as Kennedy said with frustration, “Play the whole clip.”
The host played Kennedy a clip from a July interview with Lex Fridamn in which he said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” She then asked, “So you did say it. Do you still believe it?”
Kennedy replied, “Here’s what I… here’s what I would say. First of all, I’m not anti-vaccine.”
The candidate has been responsible for the spread of vaccine misinformation numerous times over the years, a charge he denied. Kennedy told Hunt that in the past he had only hoped to push for more stringent research on vaccines, not declare vaccines unsafe entirely.
The clip Hunt played Kennedy is from an interview with the “Lex Fridman Podcast.” In the footage, it’s clear that he told the podcast host that “some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”
The host asked Kennedy, “How is that statement not anti-vaccine?” and Kennedy said, “Well, it’s… I can say right now, there’s no vaccine medicine for cancer that’s safe and effective. It doesn’t mean I’m against all medicines.”
So-called “live virus” vaccines, or live-attenuated vaccines, include the measles/mumps/rubella MMR combined vaccine, rotavirus, smallpox, chicken pox and yellow fever vaccines.
“I’ve been fighting 40 years to get mercury out of fish,” Kennedy continued. “Nobody calls me anti-fish. What I want is vaccines that are proven safe. And what I meant — which was a bad use of words, as none of the vaccines that are currently on the mandated schedule for children, 72 vaccines, have ever been tested in a pre-licensing safety study.”
“What that means is that we do not know. We do not know what the risk profile is for those products. And you cannot prove that any, or say with any scientific certainty, that any of those products are causing—” Kennedy said when Hunt interrupted to ask, “So you still believe that no vaccines are safe and effective?”
“Oh, what I’m saying is that none of the 72 vaccines have ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing,” Kennedy replied.
Hunt continued to press Kennedy, including playing him apparently anti-vaccine comments from another podcast interview he gave.
Watch the interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the video above.
