Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and conspiracy theorist. He is the chairman and founder of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group that is a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. He is on the ballot in some states as an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election. A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of the U.S. attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy, and a nephew of the U.S. president John F. Kennedy and senator Ted Kennedy. After growing up in the Washington, D.C. area and Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He began his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City. In the mid-1980s, he joined two nonprofits focused on environmental protection: Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). His work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards. At both organizations, Kennedy won legal battles against large corporate polluters. He became an adjunct professor of environmental law at Pace University School of Law in 1986. In 1987, Kennedy founded Pace's Environmental Litigation Clinic, and held the positions of supervising attorney and co-director there until 2017. He founded the nonprofit environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, serving as the president of its board until 2020. Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine misinformation and public-health conspiracy theories, including the scientifically disproven claim of a causal link between vaccines and autism. The preservative Kennedy bases his claims on has not been used in childhood vaccines since 2001. Kennedy has described his position as advocating for medical freedom and raising concerns about government overreach in public health matters, though public health experts and fact checkers have widely criticized this framing. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has emerged as a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in the United States. Many of his often false public health claims have targeted prominent figures such as Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and Joe Biden. He has written books including The Real Anthony Fauci (2021) and A Letter to Liberals (2022).