[Preface & Sources] Fact-checking conspiracy theories (or correcting faulty reasoning) by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Update 2)

along with his book a letter to liberals.

Preface: I will start with sources for the time being for now. As I continue to work on this article, I will add more sources, and I will start (then continue) to write paragraphs. Also, not every source will be used in the final paper as some sources just exist in case people want to learn more information.

In a letter to liberals, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. starts off his book by a misquote (or a misunderstanding) of Dr. Anthony Fauci that he said, “[A]ttacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. . . . So if you are trying to get at me as a public health official and scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science. . . . You have to be asleep not to see that — NIAID director Anthony Fauci, Meet The Press, June 9, 2021 (Kennedy 2022).” First, I would like to address an issue with how Kennedy chose to attribute his quote. Kennedy only states that he got his quote from a Meet The Press broadcast which could lead one to think that he got his quote from the show that broadcasts once a week on Sunday every morning. Where Kennedy actually got the quote from was MTP Daily on MSNBC, not the Sunday show. While this may seem like a nitpick, it is important to be precise as to where you got the information so that other people can search and look up the information themselves. Being too vague as to where you got the information causes confusion as people then have to more actively search for the quote themselves. If Kennedy had been more precise from the beginning, this confusion could have been avoided. Whether this was an accident on his part, or some kind of deliberate deception is something I don’t have knowledge of, but him leaving this information out of the quote is problematic regardless. Something you will notice is that Kennedy likes to use ellipses a lot when he quotes, and this is both a good and bad thing. While using ellipses is good as it can help cut down on unnecessary clutter when people use more words than they need to when explaining something, using ellipses can also be bad as it can leave out important context which then gives people a false impression as to what was actually said. Here is the full quote, “It’s very dangerous chuck because a lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science because all of the things that I have spoken about consistently from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people and there was pushback against me. So if you are trying to, you know, get at me as a public health official and a scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci you are attacking science and anybody who looks at what’s going on clearly sees that. You have to be asleep not to see that. That is what’s going on. Science and the truth are being attacked.” When I look at the full quote, it becomes clear that some context is clearly missing here as the words omitted from Kennedy’s quote clearly establishes that Fauci speaks about the Covid-19 pandemic based on science (including the scientific method). In other words, Fauci is not saying that science is based on whatever he says and rather what he is actually saying is that what he says is based on science. An important distinction. So, then that means that Kennedy attempting to establish that Fauci is stating that himself and science are the same thing and therefore attacking Fauci is the same as attacking science is a faulty premise with no solid foundation. So is media that is trying to support Kennedy’s narrative such as Reason magazine writer Robby Soave (Soave 2021). Instead of just holding Fauci accountable for what he says (which in this case is based on misinformation), people who look up and research information also need to be held accountable for sharing information that is not in the proper context or contains factual inaccuracies. If people have misconceptions of what Fauci actually said and take away messages from Fauci that he never intended in the first place, that is more the fault of misinformation being spread around the internet by various actors than it is Fauci himself.

What I feel needs to be emphasized here is that Dr. Fauci is an expert in his field as an immunologist and has a great deal of knowledge and experience when it comes to infectious diseases (specifically regarding the immune system). What I think Dr. Fauci was trying to say was that he was following the science and those that were not following the science were spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19 and was alarmed by how fast it was spreading which could then harm public health to the point that it would cost many people their lives. Which makes it a shame that Dr. Fauci’s intentions to warn people of the danger of misinformation regarding Covid-19 instead got twisted by various actors on the internet into many people thinking that he was saying that himself and science are the same thing and that attacking him is the same as attacking science. Fauci himself acknowledges that our understanding of science often changes and that he follows where the science takes him, not that he himself controls science or that science follows him around and obeys his every whim. Fauci changed his position on wearing masks not based on his arbitrary whim, but because the facts changed on the ground along with his understanding of the science. Before he thought there was a shortage of masks, then he realized there wasn’t. Fauci did not know how much Covid could be spread through asymptomatic transmission, then he gained more and more knowledge overtime and realized it spreads through asymptomatic transmission a lot. Fauci didn’t know whether medical-grade masks were effective outside hospital settings, then he realized they were effective. Fauci gained knowledge overtime regarding Covid-19 (much through the use of the scientific process) and changed his guidance as a result on how to protect people from Covid-19, he didn’t just rely on his arbitrary whim (Sullivan 2021). Also, it is important to remember that Covid-19 was a new illness at the time and there was a lot we did not know about it than that we do now. Sometimes you just have to work with the limited information you have at a given time, then change accordingly when more reliable information comes out that you weren’t aware of before.

If you think about it, you can see there is a double standard going on here between Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Anthony Fauci. Among some people they will say, “RFK Jr. is not a crackpot, he is just misunderstood. RFK Jr. has clearly seen the error of his ways and has changed his mind about things he has stated in the past as he has gathered new information, and we should give him a chance (Perhaps even an unlimited number of chances).” Yet many of these same people would say about Fauci, “No, Fauci isn’t allowed to change his mind at all regardless of whether his understanding of the science has changed at all. Fauci is supposed to be an expert in his field and should always stay consistent regardless of whether the facts on the ground change or not. Fauci is a traitorous flip-flopper, he is not misunderstood. He should not be allowed to be given any chances at all (or at least an arbitrarily defined minimal number of chances).” It seems that for some people Kennedy should always (or almost always) be given the benefit of the doubt, yet we should never (or almost never) give the benefit of the doubt to Fauci. The double standard here between Fauci and Kennedy is quite obvious. Instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to everyone equally, there is instead this arbitrariness in which we choose to give more benefit of the doubt to some people over others.

Another statement I want to address in Fauci’s book called a letter to liberals is this, “The more serious concern is that the majority of my political party—the Democrats—and the mainstream media generally accept Dr. Fauci’s assertion as gospel. Journalists—even science journalists—act as if they believe that any pronouncement by Dr. Anthony Fauci (or FDA, CDC, or WHO) should mark the end of scientific inquiry (Kennedy 2022).” So, I feel like this is another example of misunderstanding on Kennedy’s part as he chooses to rely on many faulty assumptions. First, Kennedy seems to imply that the majority of Democrats choose to blindly follow Fauci and just assume the things Fauci is saying is true. There are of course questions regarding Kennedy’s methodology such as how he chooses to define what a Democrat is, how he knows that that is what a majority of Democrats believe (did he conduct a poll?), etc. Would you define a democrat by who they voted for, by their personal beliefs, etc. Would you define a democrat as someone who believes in Medicare-for-all but voted for Trump? What about someone who is strongly against Medicare-for-all but chose to vote for Kamala Harris? What about someone who strongly pro-choice when it comes to Abortion but chose to vote for Trump? What about someone who is strongly pro-life when it comes to Abortion but chose to vote for Harris? What about someone who voted for Bernie Sanders in the democratic primary but voted for Trump in the general election in 2016 or 2020? What about someone who agrees with Trump on policy issues but voted for Kamala Harris because they find Trump to have a flawed moral character? Also, do certain issues have clear partisan divides such as Legalizing Marijuana? Raising the Minimum Wage?

So then if Kennedy were to conduct a poll of Democrats regarding Anthony Fauci (once he figures out how to define a democrat), maybe he would find that Democrats don’t view Fauci as favorably as he originally thought or maybe they dislike Fauci personally but agree with his scientific arguments. It could also be true that some Democrats have no strong feelings about how they feel regarding Fauci as a person but just agree with Fauci’s scientific arguments. If there is no objective test that Kennedy conducted, then Kennedy would just be relying on his personal feelings about the Democratic Party which would in no way be scientific beyond just coming up with hypothesizes. Ultimately, if Kennedy wants to know how Democrats feel about Fauci then he should use some kind of objective test with a sound methodology instead of relying on his personal feelings (which he may or may not later in the book). As for my hypothesis, I tend to find that Democrats won’t just change their beliefs, values and facts just because Fauci says otherwise. If Fauci stated that 1+1=3, most Democrats would still think that 1+1=2 is an objective fact. If Fauci stated that gravity didn’t exist, most Democrats would still think gravity existed. Also, anyone can cherry-pick the extremes that exist in a group of people. You could find Democrats that would change their views instantly just because Fauci said they should in the same way you could find Republicans believing the earth is literally 6,000 years old because they accept pseudoscience taught to them by their church. If you think my hypothesis is wrong, then by all means feel free to run an objective test to determine whether it is true or not. Maybe one could go to a place where a lot of democrats live (such as Wayne County, Michigan) and ask people what they think of Dr. Fauci.

Based on my research, here is what I know regarding whether and how much trust the American people have in Anthony Fauci (along with the CDC and the FDA). When it comes to the American people as a whole, trust has declined for the CDC from 73% in December 2020 to 64% in April 2022, for the FDA from 70% in December 2020 to 62% in April 2022 and for Anthony Fauci from 68% in December 2020 to 53% in April 2022. When it comes to Democrats specifically, trust rose for the CDC from 88% in December 2020 to 89% in April 2022, for the FDA from 81% in December 2020 to 85% in April 2022 and for Anthony Fauci it actually dropped from 90% in December 2020 to 86% in April 2022. In regard to Republicans, trust has declined for the CDC from 57% in December 2020 to 41% in April 2022, for the FDA from 62% in December 2020 to 43% in April 2022 and for Anthony Fauci from 47% in December 2020 to 25% in April 2022 (Kirzinger 2023). It is important to remember that this data is actually a little outdated by a few years as the most recent data is from April 2022 and it is currently January 2025. So, it is possible that trust could be even lower right now than it was then. Of course, my research in no way means that people shouldn’t conduct their own investigations separate from my own research regarding the level of trust the American people have in the FDA, CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci. If investigations help us to collect more data regarding this topic and have a sound methodology backing them up, then I would gladly welcome it. Think of my research as a good starting point to further delve into this topic yourself.

Also, I think it is important to explain what it means to have trust as I feel many people misunderstand what that means. Having trust in the CDC, FDA and Anthony Fauci to look out for the public health is similar to having trust in the police and fire fighters that they will keep you safe and save your life. Having trust in the police means that we think that they have the knowledge and experience to help communities resolve public safety issues, it does not mean that we think the police are above criticism or that the police are actually going around trying to shut down dissenting viewpoints simply because of disagreement (In fact, police would welcome dissenting viewpoints if it would better help them to be more effective when it comes to doing their jobs). The only instances police would be concerned is if there was misinformation going around that threatened public safety (like a fake bomb threat). Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, the FDA and the WHO function similarly to the police in this sense as they would be concerned about misinformation that threatened public health (such as misinformation regarding vaccines and how someone could get diseases). Dr. Anthony Fauci (along with these public health agencies), welcome dissenting viewpoints that would help improve the public health of communities around the United States (around the world in the case of the WHO). Throughout the book, I feel that Kennedy fails to understand how trust is defined as explained above and instead seems to think of trust in the CDC, the FDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci as blind faith that cannot be questioned which seems to be a gross mischaracterization of what having trust in the CDC, in the FDA, in the WHO and in Dr. Anthony Fauci actually means.

As to how faith relates to trust, it depends on how you define what Faith is. If you define faith as the same as you would trust Police and Fire Fighters to keep you safe and save your life, then everyone would have faith. Another way to define Faith is the belief in a higher power or a philosophy instructing you on how to live your life which would range from Christianity in the west to Confucianism in the east. There could be other ways to define faith that I am not aware of, but these are the two definitions I am most familiar with. What does concern me however is the conflating of science and faith as if they are the same thing when they are not. If science is nothing more than our beliefs, then that would mean that anything we believe is therefore true. If I believe that Unicorns exist, then Unicorns exist. If I believe that drinking Bleach is healthy for you, then drinking Bleach is healthy for you. If I believe it is good for your health to jump off the empire state building, then it is good for your health to jump off the empire state building. This can go on and on. There are two ways you can go forward when it comes to defining the relationship between faith and science, and each path has some validity to it. One way would be to try to define faith by using science, as opposed to defining science by using faith. Another way would be to put science and faith into two separate categories so that they can’t intermingle with each other. These separate categories in which one of them would be science and the other one would be non-science (which includes art, religion and history) would be one way to do that.

To zoom in in regard to the idea that Dr. Fauci himself is above criticism or is not tolerant of dissenting viewpoints, this is also a view that is largely meritless. What Fauci’s intent and number one priority was to crack down on medical misinformation to prevent people from getting harmed from Covid-19. If someone’s speech were to not be a form of misinformation that would have caused people harm, I have a hard time imagining Fauci doing anything other than gladly have welcomed dissenting viewpoints and tolerated people criticizing him (if not try to learn from it). I know people like to bring up Fauci’s response to Covid-19 as an example of Fauci silencing dissenting viewpoints, but as stated before this was to, at the very least, stop the spread of harmful misinformation regarding Covid-19. This silencing of dissenting viewpoints that many people characterize Fauci as today is out of character of how he acted throughout his career. One notable example is how Fauci responded to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s while he was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The gay community at the time that AIDS was widespread in the 80s were largely ignored and Fauci was notable for being one of the few health professionals who were willing to interact with the gay community and hear them out at the time. Fauci went so far as to go to a gay bar to hear from the gay community regarding their concerns about AIDS and how it was affecting their community (American Masters 2023).

Now, I understand that misinformation is considered free speech and is therefore protected by the first amendment and any attempt to change this would be struck down by the supreme court (if it even got to them in the first place after getting struck down by a lower court). However, just because you have the right to free speech does not mean that you are free from the consequences of your speech. If you are an employee who works for the private sector, your employer can fire you if you engage in a form of speech that they disapprove of or believes causes harm to them. You can also lose friends or lose contact with family if they find your speech to be harmful to them in some way. Also, just because you can argue that misinformation should be allowed from a legal standpoint because it is free speech (even if it doesn’t protect you from the consequences of your speech) does not mean that misinformation is justifiable from a moral/ethical standpoint. Legality and morality are different things and should be treated as such. Morality and Ethics are often derived from the norms of society as opposed to specific laws or rules, and norms have been in decline for quite a while now. There was a time in America when norms used to discourage people from lying even if they could legally do so, now people only avoid lying if they face some kind of legal consequence (which only applies in rare cases). People becoming misinformed has also become more of a problem with the rise of the internet which allows misinformation to become so plentiful. On top of that, there is also the concern of misinformation becoming illegal as it then could be weaponized for political purposes. For example, if the definition of defamation under the law were to be expanded so that it would be easier to sue for defamation then defamation could be more easily weaponized and used to chill free speech.

Also, Kennedy overgeneralizes when it comes to what he refers to as mainstream media or journalists. Tell me what exactly he even considers mainstream media in the first place. Maybe one could define the main television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) and some cable news channels (CNN, MSNBC) to be mainstream media. Maybe even some newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post). But what other news sources. Is the Wall Street Journal considered mainstream media? What about Fox News? Newsmax? National Review? Washington Examiner? Washington Times? Democracy Now? The Young Turks? The American Prospect? Time Magazine? Daily Beast? National Geographic? Bloomberg? The Nation? The New Republic? The Dispatch? The Christian Science Monitor? One could argue that all media has become niche to the point that nothing is truly mainstream anymore. Without defining the boundaries of what mainstream media even is, it is difficult to talk about what he means when he says mainstream media whether he is talking about specific outlets or whether it is some kind of catch-all term.

Kennedy then seems to use a quote from Eisenhower’s farewell address that he gave in 1961, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist…. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. We must . . . be alert to the . . . danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite (Kennedy 2022).” This is an actual quote from Eisenhower from his farewell address in 1961 which is good because people have misattributed quotes in the past (as Kennedy may later in the book) (National Archives 1961). However, I disagree that this quote is an accurate characterization of the CDC, FDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci during Covid-19. The CDC, FDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci was not this scientific-technological elite that could not be questioned, rather they were doing their job of looking out for the public health of Americans so that they could be protected from disease (much like the job of the police is to look out for public safety threats).

Another quote I want to assess from Kennedy is this, “This essay emerged from a congenial and ongoing conversation, during the COVID pandemic, between myself and my longtime friend and former law partner, John Morgan, a lifelong champion of the Democratic Party and liberal values. I invited John— who reveres Anthony Fauci and accepts the scientific validity of the government’s COVID countermeasures— to reengage his critical thinking skills and to accept my challenge to science-based debate, which he did. I hope this little book will encourage other liberal Democrats to do the same (Kennedy 2022).” First, I would like to establish that bipartisanship between different political parties and the truth are fundamentally different things. There could be bipartisanship that drinking Bleach is good for your health or that 1+1=3, but just because there is bipartisan support for these measures does not mean that they are true statements. While bipartisanship is important and should be encouraged, bipartisanship should never be of greater importance than truth/factual accuracy. Also, there is a big difference between willing to hear dissenting viewpoints and combating the danger of misinformation. Although I agree that we should be willing to hear dissenting viewpoints as there can be important things that we can learn from them, there should also be some caution around certain dissenting viewpoints as they tend to spread misinformation that then harms society as opposed to serving any kind of public good. Which is why there needs to be a separation when it comes to dissenting viewpoints between healthy forms of doubt/skepticism and unhealthy forms of doubt/skepticism. For example, hearing a dissenting viewpoint that creates doubt that drinking Bleach is actually bad for your health will harm society in the long run if it gets widespread and would be a form of unhealthy doubt/skepticism. Having a dissenting viewpoint that creates doubts about whether the Holocaust actually happened would be a prominent example of unhealthy doubt/skepticism and would be a denial of a deeply traumatic historical event. Knowing when to be skeptical about something and knowing when not to be skeptical about something is an important skill that many people struggle to get right today.

Since Kennedy mentions John Morgan as a close colleague of his in the book, I figure it would be good to look into John Morgan himself and how he is connected to Kennedy. John Morgan is a democratic fundraiser, and a Florida trial attorney who is a well-known advocate for Florida’s medical marijuana amendment and launched an initiative to increase Florida’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026 (Kihara 2024). Kennedy and Morgan know each other as Kennedy helped to advertise for Morgan’s law firm called Morgan & Morgan (Morgan & Morgan: Battle Ready 2025). On Morgan & Morgan’s website, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is given his own profile page that paints him in a positive light and doesn’t mention his views on vaccines or much (if any) of his controversial medical views. The reason Morgan & Morgan paints Kennedy in a positive light is probably because the Morgan & Morgan law firm has worked with Kennedy before on a case against SoCalGas regarding an Aliso Canyon gas well blowout that occurred in Porter Ranch, California (Morgan & Morgan: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 2025). So, then it makes sense that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would use John Morgan as an example of a democrat that he gets along with as well as exemplify the importance of bipartisanship as they already have a good relationship with each other. However, as I have stated before, Bipartisanship is important but should never be more important than the truth/factual accuracy. You could also claim that there is a conflict of interest of sorts between Kennedy and Morgan.

Before I continue to fact-check the book through (and expose the faulty reasoning throughout), let us look closer at Kennedy himself and the claims he has made over the years. Much of Kennedy’s claims about vaccines and diseases (and the claims made by the organization he joined called the Children’s Health Defense) have been shown to be false, such as the claim that vaccines can cause brain injury (AutismOne 2025), falsely claiming that the death of baseball star Hank Aaron was linked to the Covid-19 vaccine (BBC News 2021), falsely claiming that ingredients in vaccines is causing various kinds of childhood illnesses (Bergengruen 2023) (including allergies, autism and cancer (Canales 2021)), such as Mercury (Branswell 2017) (which isn’t causing childhood illness (World Health Organization 2012 and Offit 2020)), Aluminum (Branswell 2017) (also doesn’t cause childhood illness (Trela 2024)), used the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System in a flawed way to show deaths due to the Covid vaccine which is flawed because anyone can report anything they want to the reporting system and don’t have to verify that it is true (such as claiming that the Covid vaccine turns me into the incredible hulk) (Putterman 2021 and Annenberg Public Policy Center 2023), falsely claiming that covid vaccines might not work when they do, falsely claiming that no children have died from Covid-19 when some have (even if it is a lesser number than other age groups), falsely stating that vaccines are unsafe for minorities, falsely claim that vaccines are linked to structural and historical racism (Center for Countering Digital Hate Playbook 2020), falsely claimed that Covid-19 was genetically engineered as a deliberately leaked bioweapon, falsely claimed and promoted ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 (It isn’t (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2024)) (Dorn 2023), falsely claimed that Covid-19 were most effective in targeting Caucasians and Black People while Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese are the most immune from Covid, falsely claimed that hydroxychloroquine was a treatment for covid-19 (it isn’t (Drugs.com 2024 and Mayo Clinic Staff 2023)) (Dorn 2024), claims that nutrition and clean water cures measles, not vaccines (Hooks 2019). Other false claims that Kennedy (and Children’s Health Defense) has made regarding topics other than vaccines includes false causes of childhood illnesses such as fluoride in drinking water (Kennedy believes fluoride is linked to arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease (Dorn 2024)), acetaminophen and 5G wireless technology (such as saying that WiFi radiation causes cancer (when it has clearly not been proven (American Cancer Society 2022))), the 2004 election had been stolen from John Kerry, Robert Kennedy claiming that the CIA killed his father (Bergengruen 2023), gave credence to a conspiracy theory/misinformation regarding chemtrails in which they spray toxic aerosols (in reality, it is water vapor) (Bump 2024), False claims/conspiracy theories regarding Bill Gates (such as that he developed coronavirus vaccines to control people via microchips (Porterfield 2020)) (Center for Countering Digital Hate: Playbook 2020), falsely claiming that mass shootings are linked to prescription drugs (of which there is no scientifically established correlation) (Dorn 2023), engaged in conspiratorial thinking when he claimed that U.S. labs in Ukraine (or the Chinese government (Horovitz 2023)) collected DNA from both Chinese and Russian citizens so that people can be targeted by their race, promotes raw milk over pasteurized milk (which is dangerous (Leffer 2024)), creating harmful doubt when it comes to HIV causing AIDS if not outright denying HIV causes AIDS (HIV does cause AIDS (Merlan 2024 and Wilson 2022)) (Dorn 2024). Kennedy’s misinformation has had harmful effects in the real world, such as what happened in Samoa in which there was a measles outbreak in which 32 people were killed (Guarino 2019).

One of the concerns Kennedy brings up throughout the book is that he feels that modern-day democrats have become closed-minded and are unwilling to debate and have their ideas challenged. What Kennedy misunderstands is that modern-day democrats are willing to have their ideas challenged, but they also feel that they need to balance that with their concern of the spread of dangerous misinformation and pseudoscience that would harm people. There is no doubt that debating things that we are uncertain about has value, but there is danger in debating things that have already been thoroughly tested and challenged. Tell me, what would be the value of debating whether 1+1=2 or =3? Whether the earth is 6,000 years old or 4.5 billion years old (It is 4.5 billion years old by the way (U.S. Geological Survey 1997))? Or whether drinking bleach is either bad or good for your health (It’s bad, very bad (Johnson-Arbor 2025 and Pietrangelo 2020))? Kennedy wanting to have debates (especially regarding things that have already been thoroughly tested to be true) are harmful because it allows people to be exposed to dangerous forms of misinformation that they would not have been exposed to otherwise as they are swayed by spectacle, performance and faulty reasoning rather than substance. For example, having a debate between someone who falsely believes the earth is 6000 years old versus someone who accurately knows the earth is 4.5 billion years old could convince people the earth is 6000 years old. The reason people would be convinced would not be because they engaged in critical thinking skills to improve their reasoning or logic, rather it would be because of illogical reasoning such as confirmation bias or influenced by that person’s charisma. Anyone can look up reliable information for themselves if they are determined enough to find it (and be able to differentiate between information that is factually accurate versus factually inaccurate). The fact is that scientists who are very knowledgeable about their field have already debated with each other and conducted very thorough experiments. Although, scientists often struggle to communicate this to the general public which is an issue in and of itself (while combating misinformation at the same time). What is funny here is that Kennedy doesn’t take his own advice and challenge his own views and ideas. Kennedy has been told that there is no link between vaccines and autism over and over and over again and refuses to listen or look at studies that challenge his view that vaccines cause autism and only cherry-picks studies that confirms his hypothesis that vaccines cause autism (which is pseudoscience). In the end, Kennedy just refuses to accept the truth that vaccines and autism have no causal link.

In the first chapter of a letter to liberals, Kennedy writes that, “However, there is meager scientific evidence that vaccines reduced COVID infections or deaths.” What Kennedy gets wrong here is that there is plenty of evidence that vaccines are effective when it comes to preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death by lessening the severity of Covid-19 when you get it (Johns Hopkins Medicine 2024 and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Benefits of Getting Vaccinated 2025). When it comes to Covid vaccines reducing infections, Kennedy is engaged in a form of oversimplification. While the Covid vaccine can’t stop all Covid-19 infections (such as breakthrough infections), it is true that the Covid-19 vaccine at least stops some infections (if not most of them). There are numerous factors that contribute to whether someone is going to have a breakthrough infection such as the characteristics of that individual (such as someone who is immunosuppressed after an organ transplant or liver disease) or whether the Covid infection is the result of a new variant or not (such as Omicron and Delta) (Berg 2022). It is also true that getting a breakthrough infection of Covid-19 is going to be less severe and less damaging to your health than getting Covid-19 naturally without a vaccine (Piedmont 2025). Kennedy is also being misleading when he states, “To the contrary, there is abundant evidence that mass vaccination had only very brief efficacy against Covid.” While it is true that your immunity to Covid-19 declines overtime after taking the Covid vaccine, it is ridiculous to suggest that it goes away completely. One study showed that even the weakest vaccine when it came to declining immunity which was the AstraZeneca vaccine still had 75.7% protection after 5 months of getting the Covid vaccine (Haq 2024). Another study showed that effectiveness against having severe cases of Covid after 6 months of receiving the vaccine was greater than or equal to 70% (Feikin 2022). Either way, both studies defy and refutes the characterization given by Kennedy of the vaccines having very brief efficacy.

Zooming in on the study that Kennedy cites (and cherry-picks) in his book for chapter 1 titled, “Increases in Covid-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States.” from the European Journal of Epidemiology (Subramanian 2021), it is a study that has a flawed methodology. There have been responses to Subramanian’s study that have pointed out the flaws in his methodology such as one response from Todd Coleman, Alik Sarian and Stephanie Grad (Coleman 2021), another response from Emilio Gianicolo, Daniel Wollschläger and Maria Blettner also pointed out flaws (Gianicolo 2021) as did one last response from Matthieu Mulot, Corentin Segalas, Clémence Leyrat and Lonni Besançon (Mulot 2021). The response from Coleman describes one of the issues with Subramanian’s study in that it rarely differentiates between the prevalence of disease that damage health and the effects of vaccines that treat diseases across populations with the prevalence of disease that damage health and the effects of vaccines that treat diseases within a population among individual people, with which one disease could be Covid-19. Subramanian’s study almost always only studies the relationship between the prevalence of Covid-19 and the effects of the Covid vaccine across 68 countries around the world and 2947 counties in the United States, very rarely within the countries or counties among individual people. This is important because there could be factors that could affect the relationship between the prevalence of Covid-19 and the effects of the Covid vaccine that we would only know by extensively looking at data within the 68 countries and 2947 counties among individual people, not just across broad populations more generally. It is erroneous to infer that to figure out the cause of something that we only need to look at a group of people and don’t need to look into how causes could be different for individuals inside populations (beyond just very briefly). There are also no statistical tests in Subramanian’s study as there was no test that Subramanian himself/herself conducted, an important omission. While it is understandable that the purpose may have been to make it more understandable to the average person who doesn’t know how to read scientific studies, it also has the effect of making the study less scientifically sound as a key part of the scientific method is to test out hypothesizes by conducting an experiment. Another important omission of Subramanian’s study are the thresholds required for herd immunity which need to be factored in when comparing vaccination rates among groups of people with what effects the vaccine has on the prevalence of Covid-19 as well as the death and hospitalization rate of Covid-19 (Coleman 2021).

As for the rare cases where individuals were looked at in Subramanian’s study and not just general populations compared with each other (such as Israel and the United States), there were flaws regarding the methodology. When Subramanian zooms in on individual cases in the United States, he/she uses the term “severe hospitalization” but doesn’t adequately define what that means and the term isn’t used in the material Subramanian uses as a resource. Also, Subramanian incorrectly states that there has been an increase in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths for just the fully vaccinated between January 2021 to May 2021 from 0 to 15.1%. The error that Subramanian is making here is that the increase in deaths is a combination of those who have been hospitalized and those who have been vaccinated, not just those who have been vaccinated. Also, one of the sources that Subramanian is using for reference directly rebukes his study that increases in Covid-19 is unrelated to levels of vaccination. When it comes to the section that discusses the findings among individuals in the United States, it shows that covid vaccines are correlated with (maybe even causing) an 8-fold reduction in disease incidence, a 25-fold reduction in hospitalization incidence, and a 25-fold reduction in incidence of deaths. Also, there isn’t any discussion in Subramanian’s study regarding vaccine effectiveness among individual people outside of the United States and Israel that could have lower or higher effectiveness such as Canada, England or some other country. If other countries have a higher level of vaccine effectiveness than it would paint a different picture of vaccines being effective in preventing Covid deaths and infections. When you limit the countries that you compare with each other, you limit the valuable data that can be obtained (Coleman 2021). Lastly, Subramanian’s study omits several important variables that don’t even get mentioned such as “differences in timing and changes in population proportions of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, rates of active (i.e. prevalent) cases within these areas during time periods under consideration, changes and evolutions of public health recommendations, policies, and practices (such as mask mandates, physical distancing levels, and timing of lifting of lockdown measures) in these countries/counties, and other population-level characteristics such as population density, and age distributions within populations (Coleman 2021)”.

The issues raised by Gianicolo’s response in regard to Subramanian’s study regarding the relationship between the prevalence of Covid-19 and the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine are also fairly significant and shouldn’t be ignored. Gianicolo pointed out the arbitrariness of the time period in Subramanian’s study in that the study only relies on data points from two weeks instead of a complete timeline since the beginning of people getting vaccinated. Another thing that Gianicolo points out in his response is that Subramanian’s study only states whether or not there has been an increase in the number of positive tests within a certain region between two time periods (or data points) but does not specify how big the change of positive tests there is. There is also a problem of there being major differences in how countries chose to act differently from each other in terms of their response to Covid. Differences between countries include different strategies when it comes to testing, how much testing a country can do, whether vaccines are widely available, available on a limited basis or are not available at all, the different socioeconomic factors that exist across different countries, and the different demographics that exist across different countries such as what percentage of the population is elderly versus what percentage of the population is younger. Subramanian’s study uses the CDC’s preliminary data to show that those who are fully vaccinated with the Covid vaccine have a higher rate of death and hospitalization. Subramanian’s study’s use of the CDC’s preliminary data is flawed as it falls victim to the Simpson’s paradox in which a trend appears among multiple groups of data but when the data from all the groups is combined the trend is either reversed or disappears. Many of the people who were vaccinated in the CDCs preliminary data were the elderly who have a high Covid vaccination rate yet also have a high risk for severe Covid disease. When applying the Simpson’s paradox to the elderly, you could separate the high Covid vaccination rate from the high risk for severe Covid disease and come to the faulty conclusion that a higher Covid vaccination rate is positively correlated with (or maybe causes) severe Covid disease. However, when you combine the high Covid vaccination rate among the elderly with the high risk of severe Covid disease that the elderly also have you will actually find a negative correlation in which the higher the Covid vaccination rate the lower the risk of developing severe Covid disease (Gianicolo 2021).

The following paragraph is a work in progress:

(When it comes to Mulot’s response to Subramanian’s study, he brings important critiques of his own (Mulot 2021). According to Mulot, Subramanian’s study is flawed because it relies mostly (if not only) on the total number of Covid cases when it comes to the effectiveness of Covid vaccines but does not include data regarding the reduction of severe Covid cases as well as the reduction of deaths and hospitalizations as a result of Covid-19 vaccine which is the most important thing to measure when testing for the effectiveness of Covid vaccines. It is also important to determine whether the covid vaccine can reduce the severity of Covid-19 cases and hospitals because if vaccines can do that than it would reduce the burden on the health care system. Now, Subramanian does acknowledge that vaccines can protect people from severe cases of Covid-19 and hospitalizations in their study. However, Subramanian immediately tries to undercut that by stating “the CDC reported an increase from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (between January to May 2021) in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, amongst the fully vaccinated.” The problem that Mulot points out with Subramanian use of CDC data here is that it is not an accurate way to measure how much Covid-19 has been spread as it only includes Covid cases that have been confirmed and doesn’t include Covid cases that haven’t been confirmed. The reason is that in order for a Covid case to be confirmed, it has to be tested and not everyone who has Covid-19 has been tested and has therefore been confirmed to have Covid. While Subramanian briefly notes that the Covid-19 case data is only of confirmed cases, he doesn’t take note of this problem in this specific context.)

Another issue brought up by Mulot’s response to Subramanian’s study was in regard to its timing of its two measurements of how many new cases of Covid-19 occurred between the two measured time periods (Mulot 2021). According to Mulot, the seven-day time window (which are the two measured time periods) is arbitrary and erroneous as it may include cases that are not representative of the average person catching Covid-19 or ignores the factor that there are different Covid epidemic phases that each country goes through at different times. To explain the latter point in more detail, when a contagious disease spreads it doesn’t spread everywhere around the world at the same time as regions and people that are closer to the disease outbreak tend to catch the disease sooner and spread the disease sooner than those that are farther from the outbreak. A seven-day time window doesn’t take this into account as one country could have caught the Covid-19 disease sooner and be going through a later Covid epidemic phase as a result when compared to another country that caught the Covid-19 disease later and is going through an earlier Covid epidemic phase as a result. A seven-day window is also too short a time to accurately measure incidence of Covid-19 as the Covid pandemic lasts for months and any indirect effect the Covid vaccine has on how the Covid virus is transmitted would necessitate a follow-up of some kind. Vaccination is not just a one-time thing and is instead an extended process which is only made more complicated with the accompaniment of different waves of the Covid-19 epidemic. Another point that Mulot makes in his response to Subramanian’s study is that the immunization process does not just consist of vaccination status and also includes individuals who have been previously infected with Covid-19 and therefore became immune through that process, yet Subramanian’s study makes no mention of those who became immune because of previous infection (Subramanian 2021).

The inclusion/exclusion criteria that Subramanian uses in his study also has some issues, which Mulot points out in his response (Mulot 2021). What was the justification of the criteria set in Subramanian’s study when it came to the relationship between the increases in the rate of Covid-19 and the level of vaccination in 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States such as had second dose vaccine data available; had COVID-19 case data available; had population data available; and the last update of data was within 3 days prior to or on September 3, 2021? Also, there were countries (France, U.K., Germany, Switzerland, Spain, etc.) that had information regarding the criteria that Subramanian set in this study and yet such data from these countries were not included in the study. An important factor is that Subramanian’s study includes many low- and middle-income countries. Yet Subramanian doesn’t seem to adequately address this factor in the study which matters because poorer countries have less testing capacity and could have an underreported but higher burden as a result of Covid-19 than richer countries do.

Subramanian’s study also makes errors in regard to its statistical analysis in that only includes an unadjusted linear regression and three descriptive plots. The error here is that confounded statistical associations are created as a result of the use of confounding variables. A confounding variable is defined as a variable that influences both the independent and dependent variables and can mistakenly lead people to a false/fake association in which they think an independent variable causes the dependent variable when it doesn’t. Another way a confounded variable can get in the way is that it can obscure a causal link in which an independent variable actually does cause the dependent variable. In this case, Subramanian’s study casts doubt that the Covid-19 vaccine reduces the risk of someone catching Covid-19 in the first place and lessens the severity of Covid-19 after someone is infected by it. The reality is that there is a causal link between the Covid vaccine and the reduction of catching covid-19 along with reducing the severity of Covid-19, but Subramanian’s study doesn’t pick up on that because confounding variables get in the way and obscure this link. In another case, Subramanian’s study states that a greater Covid vaccination rate is correlated with (if not causes) an increase in hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 which is faulty because of the effect of confounding variables. Subramanian’s study also makes an error in regard to this statement, “cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days is largely similar across the categories of percent of the population fully vaccinated (Subramanian 2021)”. Yet, if a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis's test was to be performed and then afterwards perform a multiple pairwise Wilcoxon test it will establish that that a higher vaccination rate is correlated with (if not causes) a lower 7-day occurrence rate of Covid-19. Although, it is important to note that even after performing both the non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis's test and multiple pairwise Wilcoxon test the result will still not solve the problem of not factoring in confounding variables (Mulot 2021).

There are probably other problems regarding Subramanian’s study that are not mentioned here but the problems that have already been discussed should give anyone pause. The fact that RFK Jr. would cherry-pick a study with the many problems it has with its methodology should alarm people should he be given a position of power over government health agencies. Preferably, you would want someone who is knowledgeable about health and medicine who can tell the difference between a methodologically sound study and a methodologically flawed study, and RFK Jr. just doesn’t fit the bill.

According to RFK Jr. in chapter 10 of his book, he thinks that masks meant to reduce the spread of Covid-19 were dangerous and ineffective (Kennedy 2022). Is this really true? Especially given that many of RFK Jr.’s views are considered fringe and medically inaccurate? Turns out, Kennedy is wrong when it comes to effectiveness as it has been clearly proven that masks reduce the spread of Covid-19. Although different factors affect how effective masks will be such as the kind of mask that a person chooses to wear (N95 mask, cloth mask, etc.) and how long someone is around an infected person (10 minutes, an hour, etc.), it is clear that wearing a mask is at least somewhat effective in reducing the spread of Covid-19. The time it takes for Covid-19 to spread from the person who is considered the source to the person who receives the Covid-19 infection is estimated to be about 25 hours if both the source and the receiver are wearing a fit-tested N95 mask, whereas it will only take 26 minutes if both the source and receiver are wearing a cloth mask (Brosseau 2021). There is also evidence that states mandating face masks have a lower and slower Covid-19 growth rate than states that didn’t mandate face masks from .9 to 2% (Lyu 2020). Another study states that respirators and masks reduced the risk of getting infected with Covid-19 by 85% (MacIntyre 2020).

When it comes to masks being dangerous Kennedy is mostly wrong here as well and any minor negative health effects caused by masks are outweighed by the masks public benefit of protection against Covid-19. Kennedy picks a study to bring attention to the concern that microplastics can come from masks and harm human lungs (Jenner 2022). However, there are a couple of important caveats that Kennedy doesn’t mention regarding Masks and microplastics. Microplastics can already be found in the food we eat and air we breathe (such as street dust) and as such wearing a mask can act like a barrier keeping microplastics out. The barrier the masks provide actually protect you when it comes to inhaling microplastics that are spherical-like versus not wearing a mask and being more vulnerable to spherical-type microplastics. However, at the same time the masks can increase your risk of inhaling microplastics that are stripe-like or fiber-like (an N95 mask to a much lesser extent). In the end, someone has a high risk inhaling microplastics whether it is fiber-like when choosing to wear a mask (an N95 mask to a much lesser extent) or spherical-like when choosing not to wear a mask. The fact that masks help to reduce the spread of Covid-19 also need to be factored in as well (Li 2021).

Kennedy states in his book that social distancing was not science based (which also seems to imply that social distancing did not reduce the spread of Covid-19) (Kennedy 2022). Yet, social distancing did help to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and is an effective public health tool. In fact, social distancing policies helped to reduce new covid cases by 65% over a two-week period in 46 countries (Boldt 2020). Including in Wuhan, China where physical distancing measures lowered the median number of Covid infections by 92% in mid-2020 and by 24% in end-2020 (Prem 2025). Social distancing measures in the United States also lowered the growth rate of Covid-19 and more specifically decreased the Covid-19 growth rate by 5.4% in 1-5 days, 6.8% in 6-10 days, 8.2% in 11-15 days and 9.1% in 16-20 days (Courtemanche 2020). Yet another study showed that implementing social distancing (or reducing social contacts) for the elderly by 60% and for the general population by 40% would reduce the Covid-19 death rate from 23% to 67% (Aquino 2020). Yet another study also confirms that social distancing is effective at reducing the spread and death rate of Covid-19 (Moosa 2020). As for the CDC implementing a six-foot rule that was largely done as a precautionary measure as we did not fully understand how far Covid could spread. Even if the six-foot rule did end up being arbitrary, that does not mean that social distancing had no effect on the spread of Covid-19. In fact, there is ample evidence that social distancing does reduce the spread of Covid-19 (as shown by the preceding sentences of this paragraph) even if there isn’t evidence for six-feet specifically (Silver 2024).

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