The Response Politico Won't Run: Robert Kennedy Jr to His Family
Imagine an America where a major political magazine refuses to publish Robert Kennedy, Jr.. whose family has been political royalty for more than 60 years, because the topic, vaccination safety, is verboten unless it's to praise pharma and damn vaccine choice. America is 2019 is upside down. Do we stay this way or find a way back upright? I just don't know. Seems like the only category we need here at AofA these days is "nightmares."
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CHD NOTE: In early May 2019, Politico Magazine published an article written by three of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s relatives, criticizing his advocacy for safe vaccines. After numerous requests, Politico magazine has refused to publish his response.
Americans Can Handle an Open Discussion on Vaccines—RFK, Jr. Responds to Criticism from His Family
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Three of my Kennedy relatives recently published an article criticizing my advocacy for safe vaccines. Our contentious family dispute highlights the fierce national donnybrook over vaccinations that has divided communities and raised doubts about the Democratic Party’s commitment to some of its defining values: abhorrence of censorship, wariness toward excessive corporate power, support for free speech, religious freedom, and personal sovereignty over our bodies, and the rights of citizens (codified in the Nuremberg Code and other treaties to which we are signatories) to decline unwanted government-mandated medical interventions. The debate has also raised questions about the independence of our press and its role as a champion of free speech, and First Amendment rights and as a bulwark against overreaching by government and corporations.
I love my family and sympathize with their anxieties when I call out government officials for corruption. The Kennedys have a long, close, and continuing relationship with public health agencies so it is understandably difficult for us to believe that powerful regulators would lie about vaccines. “All issues are simple,” the saw goes, “until you study them.”
Those conflicts motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science.
My skepticism
I’ve arrived at my skepticism after 15 years spent researching and litigating this issue. I have watched financial conflicts and institutional self-interest transform key sectors of our public health bureaucracies into appendages of the very pharmaceutical companies that Congress charged them to regulate.
Multiple investigations by Congress and the HHS Inspector General have consistently found that an overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These public servants are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science.
HHS partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales.
The pharmaceutical industry also enforces policy discipline through agency budgets. FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget. Further, Pharma directly funds, populates and controls dozens of CDC programs through the CDC foundation. A British Medical Journal editorial excoriates CDC’s sweetheart relationship with pharma quotes UCLA Professor of Medicine Jerome R. Hoffman “most of us were shocked to learn the CDC takes funding from industry… It is outrageous that industry is apparently allowed to punish the CDC if the agency conducts research that has potential to cut into profits.” Please read the full article at the Children's Health Defense website.
Keith Kloor is another journalist who has attacked RFK Jr. He was also an early adopter of the attack on Andrew Wakefield. In fact, timing and language indicates some coordination with Brian Deer's 2011 attack on Wakefield.
Recently USRTK uncovered Kloor's behind-the-scenes coordinating with two supposedly independent agricultural scientists. In his article "Why Vaccine and GMO Denial Should be Treated Equally," Kloor disparages RFK Jr and vaccine safety advocates (and, of course, GMO skeptics). If we suspect Kloor is a crypto Monsanto employee, why should we credit him on vaccines? More importantly, why should we believe any of the journalists slamming vaccine safety advocacy? It's not a far reach to conclude that they are all bought and paid for.
https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/keith-kloor-the-agrichemical-industrys-favorite-writer/ :
"Emails from August 2014 show Kloor offering messaging advice to Dr. Folta and another source, Dr. Karl Haro von Mogel, the media director of the GMO promotion group Biofortified. Kloor asked them to critique an article by Carole Bartolotto, a dietician who had written critically about GMOs. The emails show that Kloor edited the comments and suggested ways to strengthen the messaging: 'My advice: keep the language as neutral and judgment-free as possible. You’re aiming for the fence-sitters, who may well be turned off by language that comes off as heavy handed.'
Kloor posted the Bartolotto critique on his Discover blog and described Drs. Folta and von Mogel as 'two scientists who receive no funding from the biotech industry.' Emails later revealed that, just a few weeks earlier, Monsanto had agreed to fund Dr. Folta’s promotional efforts for GMOs; and, the previous summer, Dr. Folta planned to visit Hawaii to lobby against pesticide restrictions on a trip organized and paid for by a pesticide industry trade group (Dr. von Mogel was also included on those emails). Kloor’s article still appears on the Discover website without updates or corrections."
http://www.keithkloor.com/?p=13583 "Why Vaccine and GMO Denial Should be Treated Equally"
Keith Kloor, Jan 6, 2011: So will this news of “elaborate fraud” by a champion of the debunked vaccine-autism connection give pause to the the anti-vaxxers, who regard Wakefield as their hero? And quoting Fiona Godlee, “….Instead, although now disgraced and stripped of his clinical and academic credentials, he continues to push his views.”
Immunization Action Coalition introducing Brian Deer’s “Secrets of the MMR Scare” of Jan 6, 2011: 'MMR doctor' planned scheme to make millions from his health scare Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor who claimed a link between MMR and autism, planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations. The Wakefield scheme is exposed today in the second part of a BMJ series of special reports, "Secrets of the MMR scare," by investigative journalist Brian Deer. Last week we revealed the scientific fraud behind the appearance of a link between the vaccine and autism. Now Deer follows the money.
Posted by: Carol | August 18, 2019 at 05:09 PM
Barry,
The other possibility to the scenario you describe - and it is happening already - is that people will stop watching the MSM and turn to the alternatives. I know, some of those alternatives are taking on the mantle of the original media, but I believe the trend is in the right direction, and accelerating. I think RFK jr. will be pivotal in this movement. Only problem for me is my computer can't cope with the CHD website, so I'm grateful for whatever I can pick up from here.
I was really sorry to hear of the way RFK was treated by some of his relatives. I'm afraid, in my experience, falling out with family and former friends is a right of passage to being among those in the know and willing to speak it.
Posted by: Grace Green | August 18, 2019 at 06:59 AM
Just to say as an insight into our age RFKjnr’s recent book ‘American Values - Lessons I Learned from My Family’ is also an important read. He’s old enough to remember his uncle Jack as well as father, their attitudes and distaste particularly for the CIA, its dirty tricks and special operations, its war-mongering. Of course, it has been ignored, buried by the MSM.
Posted by: John Stone | August 17, 2019 at 01:43 PM
RKK Jr does not need the media, does not need party, and (respectfully) does not need all family (crimeny, we’re the Irish, pick up a rock and you’ll find plenty of kin to spare) to burst this toxic bubble. Run Bobby Run!
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Unfortunately, he DOES need the media. Because the media's persistence in NOT reporting the truth about vaccines, is the biggest reason why anyone who does, is eventually regarded as an unhinged lunatic.
I have a great relationship with my family members, and we have a lot of respect for each others thoughts and opinions. But some of my family members can only be described as CNN junkees. And almost all of them appear to have complete and utter trust, in everything they're being told by the MSM
They all know that my son wasn't born this way. And they all indulged me, when I told them that 31 vaccines (....that I know of) before 21 month of age is the reason why he changed. But they all seemed to glaze over as I was explaining it to them. And they all appeared uncomfortable, as I assume they were considering the horror of me possibly being right.
In each case, the conversation about vaccines ended when I stopped talking about it. And the day I knew to stop bringing it up to family, is the day when my dad kindly said "But if you ARE right about this, shouldn't someone be talking about it on the nightly news?"
Lying by omission, is an insidious form of deception. And if nothing is ever done to fix that issue, then RFK Jr is doomed to fail as a vaccine-truth teller. Just like every other truth teller before him.
Posted by: Barry | August 17, 2019 at 12:42 PM
Oh, Politico.
The wall hiding regulatory insufficiencies and vaccine injuries is coming down.
"... this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom."
President Ronald Reagan, West Berlin, Brandenburg Gate, 1987
Posted by: greyone | August 17, 2019 at 11:19 AM
Oh, Politico.
The wall hiding regulatory insufficiencies and vaccine injuries is coming down.
"... this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom."
President Ronald Reagan, West Berlin, Brandenburg Gate, 1987
Posted by: greyone | August 17, 2019 at 11:19 AM
Hans and Angus,
Thank you both for your words of support :)
Posted by: Laura Hayes | August 16, 2019 at 08:40 PM
Laura Hayes for president Ill move country to vote.
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | August 16, 2019 at 04:12 PM
Anyone whom believes that hundreds of thousands of American school children losing access to an education is not a major 2020 campaign issue is living in a bubble. Anyone whom believes that half of all American citizens having to live with (and pay for) a disease they will have their entire lives, is not a major 2020 political issue, is living in a bubble. Anyone whom believes that the measles is more of a concern to parents than the life long debilitating chronic illness our children are suffering from, is living in a bubble. RKK Jr does not need the media, does not need party, and (respectfully) does not need all family (crimeny, we’re the Irish, pick up a rock and you’ll find plenty of kin to spare) to burst this toxic bubble. Run Bobby Run!
Posted by: annie | August 16, 2019 at 04:05 PM
Oops, I posted my original list on the wrong thread. (I'm distracted by a fawn versus fox drama in my back yard.)
I thought Stephanie Mencimer might have something original to say on the topic of Andrew Wakefield. (She didn't.) Noticing that she used the hackneyed "disgraced and discredited" meme, I started tracing "disgraced and discredited" (sometimes "disgraced and debunked") and got a feel for how the public relations DNA is transmitted. Politico is fourth on the not-exhaustive list:
Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer, 2012: In 2000, he [Dan Burton] held a circus-like hearing in which he provided a very high profile platform for the now entirely disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who helped spawn the myth that vaccines cause autism….As Wakefield’s now-discredited, fabricated data started to raise questions in the medical community, Burton defended him....
FARK.com, 2013 (linking to an article at slate.com): Disgraced and discredited “Dr” Andrew Wakefield wants you to know the UK measles epidemic is “totally” not his fault….
salon.com, 2014: Wakefield is a disgraced former doctor who had his medical license revoked due to his unethical behavior in publishing a paper asserting that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism….His paper, even though discredited, is used widely as evidence of the dangers of vaccines….
Politico, 2017: “disgraced-doctor-who-questioned-vaccine-safety-looks-to-trump-with-hope” In 2012, Trump echoed Wakefield’s discredited claims that combining the three viruses in a vaccine increases children's chance of getting autism.
scienceblogs/insolence, 2017: President Trump's embrace of discredited theories linking vaccines to autism has energized....Then, of course, he met with disgraced British antivaccine "scientist" and antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield.
The Independent, 2018: “Who is Andrew Wakefield and what did the disgraced MMR doctor do?” Andrew Wakefield is a former British doctor and researcher, who birthed the modern anti-vaccination movement with widely discredited research….
The Guardian, 2018: “Disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield aims to advance his agenda in Texas election” Anti-vaccine campaigners have found a growing political voice for their debunked ideas in Texas, the adopted home of discredited British researcher Andrew Wakefield....
acha.org, 2018: Andrew Wakefield, a disgraced former doctor known for his now-discredited claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism, hopes to advance his anti-vaccine movement.
msn.com, 2019: He said his mother was influenced by the debunked and disgraced former British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who in the 1990s claimed….
Posted by: Carol | August 16, 2019 at 02:33 PM
A "Breath of Fresh Air" on the subjects from Robert Kennedy Jr. only they "Are taking your breath away....by not allowing your voice and Millions of parents voices to be seen and heard.
Posted by: Shelley Tzorfas | August 16, 2019 at 02:10 PM
Aimee Doyle,
To clarify, the question I put forth is for those who advocate for things such as safer vaccines, vaccine safety, more studies, more transparency, the continued use of exemptions, an independent regulatory agency, etc., versus demanding that which is most important, the immediate return of our bodily sovereignty via the elimination of vaccine mandates and the full return of our individual and parental rights with regard to medical decision making.
It is my hope that people will take the time to assess what it is they are fighting for (see above paragraph), then take the appropriate actions, use the needed rhetoric, and work with and support those whose end goals are in alignment.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | August 16, 2019 at 01:47 PM
In my list of publications (including Politico) that have used the "disgraced and discredited" meme when referring to Andrew Wakefield and his case series, I meant to include the one in Mother Jones by Stephanie Mencimer in 2012. It should have been at the top of the list, being one of the earlier ones.
Mencimer is the journo who inspired my very abbreviated list. I had just watched "Hot Coffee" and liked it. In it, Mencimer said that journalists had done a bad job covering personal injury stories like the famous McDonald's hot coffee suit. Hooray, I thought, here's someone who might have written something original about Andrew Wakefield. Um, no...but now we know she can take dictation.
Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer, 2012: In 2000, he [Dan Burton] held a circus-like hearing in which he provided a very high profile platform for the now entirely disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who helped spawn the myth that vaccines cause autism….As Wakefield’s now-discredited, fabricated data started to raise questions in the medical community, Burton defended him....
Posted by: Carol | August 16, 2019 at 01:06 PM
@ Laura - Why, in the supposed “land of the free”, is it so difficult and so controversial to demand our rights to bodily sovereignty for ourselves and our children when it comes to the invasive, improperly-tested, risk-laden, to the point of terribly dangerous and death-inducing, medical procedures known as vaccines?
Why? Because Big Pharma's corporate money controls our Congress (both parties); has co-opted regulatory agencies (FDA, CDC, NIH heads have pharma ties and a "revolving industry door") and essentially controls state and federal government on this matter; and controls print, television, cable, and Internet media. And Big Pharma, like almost every other corporation, cares only about profits - the bottom line.
I don't think we'll be able to fix the government or media problems without addressing the pharma money issue.
Posted by: Aimee Doyle | August 16, 2019 at 12:10 PM
Lets take it to The Hague
As the Nuremberg Code is being violated how about we and Dell Bigtree et.al., all approach
the Human Rights Watch with a view that this abonomation gets taken to The Hague Institute.
On their front webpage:
“Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978 as “Helsinki Watch,” when we began investigating rights abuses in countries that signed the Helsinki Accords, most notably those behind the Iron Curtain. Since then, our work has expanded to five continents. We investigated massacres and even genocides, along with government take-overs of media and the baseless arrests of activists and political opposition figures. At the same time, we expanded our work to address abuses against those likely to face discrimination, including women, LGBT people, and people with disabilities. When families victimized by war crimes found no justice at home, we championed international justice and international courts. While we rely on in-person interviews, our research methods have also changed with the times, and today we use satellite imagery to track the destruction of villages and city blocks, and we mine big data for patterns in arrest rates or the deportation of immigrants. Everything we do circles back to our commitment to justice, dignity, compassion, and equality.
(Emphasis mine)
https://www.hrw.org/about-us
On the front webpage of The Hague Institute:
”The Hague Institute seeks to improve the evidence-base of policies implemented by governments, international organizations and businesses.” (Emphasis mine)
https://www.thehagueinstituteforglobaljustice.org/the-hague-approach/philosophy/
How do we take this forward from here. If the Hague turns out to have been neutered as well, then Elon Musk had better get a move on with his plans for the colonization of Mars – we’ll supply the colonizers. The first vessel ought to be named Mayflower II. We are one, we are many.
Posted by: Pogo | August 16, 2019 at 11:23 AM
Posted by: Laura Hayes | August 16, 2019 at 08:15 AM
Please find a way to get into political office !
Posted by: Hans Litten | August 16, 2019 at 08:56 AM
With grace, RFK, Jr., has given truth.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | August 16, 2019 at 08:27 AM
I have a letter signed by RFK in 1968. It was dated just days before his untimely death. He acknowledged my application for nomination to the U.S. Naval Academy. I admired this man, as did my parents. They were working class Democrats. My dad died in 1991, before the birth of our son, who was poisoned by Thimerosal. He would have told Pharma: "Your money doesn't make me stupid."
I would like to tell RFK, Jr. Your dad would be so proud of you. I am too.
Never give up and never give in.
Posted by: Mark Wax | August 16, 2019 at 08:24 AM
What exactly is “vaccine safety", and should the pursuit of it be the top priority given today’s urgent and dire circumstances, as described in this article?
If one were to remove all of the unsafe ingredients in vaccines, which ingredients would be left that are safe to inject?
Procedurally, and in light of Forrest Maready’s logical and frightening conclusions, how would vaccines be administered to any newborn, infant, toddler, or young child safely, without triggering the innate, sex-specific stress responses that he chronicles in his book, which can lead to serious, lifelong harm, not to mention to grave distress?
How would it be determined, in the event a vaccine could be made to be "safe", and in the event it could also be delivered to intended age groups "safely", that it would be "safe" to interrupt, disrupt, taint, and derail our God-given immune systems, versus letting them develop naturally, without numerous invasive medical procedures, and without the use of pharmaceutical products?
We must pick our battles carefully and wisely. Do we want to battle for “safe vaccines”, or do we want to battle for an immediate end to vaccine mandates, an immediate and full return of individual and parental rights with regard to medical decision making, an immediate repeal of the 1986 Act, and an immediate moratorium on each and every vaccine as not one has been tested or approved properly or ethically?
Defining end goals is of paramount importance.
We have more than enough evidence, in the incomplete and fraud-ridden vaccine package inserts alone, not to mention in the ever-declining health, development, well-being, fertility, and longevity of the children and young adults in America post-vaccination, to declare with certainty that vaccines are not only not safe, but they are also not advantageous, health-inducing, working as claimed, ethical, economical, or wise to be administering. Thus, the battle must be to immediately ensure that individuals and parents have the unfettered right to decline and refuse one, some, or all vaccines, as they see fit, without any government interference, coercion, cost, or penalty, as that is the only way to protect oneself and one’s children from the known, and unknown, dangers, including death, of vaccines.
Why, in the supposed “land of the free”, is it so difficult and so controversial to demand our rights to bodily sovereignty for ourselves and our children when it comes to the invasive, improperly-tested, risk-laden, to the point of terribly dangerous and death-inducing, medical procedures known as vaccines?
And as for this quote from the article:
“People will vaccinate when they have confidence in regulators and industry.”
Not going to happen for a growing number of us who recognize and understand vaccination for the barbaric, child-abusive, health-destroying, communication-stealing, independence-robbing, evil practice that it is. Nor will a growing number of us ever place our trust in regulators or industry.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | August 16, 2019 at 08:15 AM
Bob,
We are witnessing the closure of society. RFKjnr addresses criticisms in the most civil and reasonable terms yet it may not be published in a mainstream source. At this point we could be certain that it is not only Politico who will not publish it but any mainstream outlet - meanwhile the search engines will bury the links to anyone who does. What can it mean when every major publisher can agree to suppress civil discourse? I was struck when the EU Commission announced that its copyright reforms would ensure the "Freedom of the Press". Well, once this might have chimed with meaning something like "freedom of speech" but it does not mean anything like that now. It just means the corporate consensus maintains control of whatever is said, while sustaining ever less credibility. This is a pitiful situation.
Posted by: John Stone | August 16, 2019 at 07:31 AM
Not allowing RFK to respond to article in Politico magazine is predictable of almost ALL major media outlets .. magazines, newspapers, television .. now efforts underway to "censor" social media outlets .. twitter, google and such.
I consider it EVIDENCE the "by any means necessary" pharma industry KNOWS it cannot withstand open, honest discussion/debate on the subject of vaccines … the industry KNOWS it would lose any such open discussion/debate .. leaving them no alternative but to take "any means necessary to prevent such an honest open debate from happening".
The ONLY place where pharma industry can win is within the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION .. because in that "court" pharmaceutical industry financial power rules … this "court" was once ruled by the tobacco industry and for decades upon decades prevailed .. hopefully the same result that ended "big tobacco's" financial power over the "court of public opinion" will happen to "big pharma" as well.
As Jesse Jackson was famous for saying ….. "KEEP HOPE ALIVE".
Posted by: Bob Moffit | August 16, 2019 at 06:43 AM
RFK , just on the off chance you might read this.
For me, this really is the crime of all centuries, that we are looking at.
And it has to be noted the incredible progress they have been able to achieve without detection.
If we lose to these orchestrated mandates all across the globe, what is a person like me to do because I certainly cannot ever succumb to their mandates. I absolutely have to resist their criminality.
It is an incredible situation when you meet people with such determination in their pro-opinions on this vaccine subject and quickly find their knowledge on vaccinations is close to nil.
Or basic at best. They come across as positively unhinged in their defence of this crime.
Posted by: Hans Litten | August 16, 2019 at 06:28 AM