(C) Common Dreams
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Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Crusade Against Covid Vaccine Anguishes Family [1]
['Adam Nagourney', 'More About Adam Nagourney']
Date: 2022-02-26
Christopher G. Kennedy, a brother, said he was startled by the invocation of Nazis. “I love my brother but could not disagree with him more,” he said in a statement. Three other siblings — Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Joseph P. Kennedy II in an essay in Politico in 2019 and Rory Kennedy in an email this month — have also criticized their brother for his attacks on vaccines.
Douglas Kennedy stopped short of rebuking his brother but made clear in an interview he has a different view of the vaccine. “I am vaccinated,” he said. “I got vaccinated as soon as I was able.”
From his earliest days growing up in Virginia, to his years at Harvard University, to his work as a co-founder of Waterkeeper Alliance, created in 1999 to battle water pollution, Mr. Kennedy has been known as someone with obsessive energy, passionate to the point of being exhausting. For nearly 40 years, he has made a mission of warning about mercury contamination — first from coal-powered plants and now as a preservative in some vaccines. Even his most prominent critics say they do not doubt his sincerity, even as he has become one of the most prominent spreaders of misinformation on vaccines.
Dr. Fauci said that at the instruction of the Trump White House, he spent an hour listening to Mr. Kennedy give a briefing on childhood vaccines at the National Institutes of Health. “As soon as the first slide went up, I raised my hand — I said, ‘Bobby, there’s no data,’” Dr. Fauci said in an interview. “He said, ‘I never get a chance to offer the facts, so I want to make a presentation, but I don’t want to be interrupted until I’m finished.’”
When it was over, Dr. Fauci walked Mr. Kennedy out of the conference room.
“I said, ‘Bobby, I’m sorry we didn’t come to any agreement here,’” he said. “‘Although I disagree factually with everything you are saying, I do understand and I respect that deep down you are really concerned about the safety of children.’ I said that in a very sincere way.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/us/robert-kennedy-covid-vaccine.html
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