Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a militant skeptic of all vaccines and a scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president.
Kennedy filed a statement of candidacy Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Biden to Replace US Dollar? [sponsored]
The 69-year-old’s campaign to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination is a long shot. Self-help author Marianne Williamson is also running in the Democratic race.
Kennedy, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of his slain brother Robert F. Kennedy, was once a bestselling author and environmental lawyer who worked on issues such as clean water.
But more than 15 years ago, he became fixated on a belief that all vaccines are unsafe. He emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement, and his work has been described by members of his own family as misleading and dangerous. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy II and Maeve Kennedy McKean all co-authored a 2019 piece called, “RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.”
Kennedy had been long involved in the anti-vaccine movement, but the effort intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His anti-vaccine charity, Children’s Health Defense, prospered during the pandemic, with revenues more than doubling in 2020 to $6.8 million, according to filings made with charity regulators.
Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when talking about measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19, such as mask requirements and vaccine mandates. He has sometimes apologized for those comments, including when he suggested that people in 2022 had it worse than Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after hiding with her family in a secret annex in an Amsterdam house for two years.
Sponsored: Bear market expert makes new prediction. Find out the details here.
Kennedy has at times invoked his family’s legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of President Kennedy.
His sister Kerry Kennedy, who runs Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the international rights group founded by their mother, Ethel, said her brother has at times removed some of the content at her request.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.