Kennedy tells anti-vaccine activists they have a friend in Trump's White
House
[September 18, 2026]
By FATIMA HUSSEIN and MIKE STOBBE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. gave the keynote address Thursday at a conference of an anti-vaccine
activist group he once chaired, telling the hundreds in attendance that
they had a friend in President Donald Trump's White House.
It was Kennedy's first time appearing at the Children's Health Defense
conference since he became secretary. Kennedy took leave from the group
when he launched his bid to become president in 2023, but his speech
Thursday served as a sort of homecoming, offering him a platform from
which to hail the administration's steps to scale back vaccine guidance
and reassure the activists in attendance that he was working to turn
their priorities into policy.
“Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White
House. We've accomplished in 19 months things that would have seemed
unthinkable two years ago,” he said.
The speech, peppered with questions about long established vaccine
safety, also highlighted how once fringe views on vaccines have been
given a prominent pulpit under the Trump administration.
Kennedy boasted about the administration's moves to downsize the
childhood vaccination schedule and reshape a key vaccine advisory board
— steps that have since been halted by a judge.
Kennedy lauded Trump for pushing ahead with attempts to overhaul vaccine
guidance, including an executive order last month calling for spacing
out the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, against medical groups'
recommendations.
That executive order and now Kennedy's keynote speech at the Children's
Health Defense conference mark a pivot by the White House and the
Department of Health and Human Services, who earlier this year had
appeared to be moving beyond vaccine efforts and toward a less
contentious agenda on healthy food ahead of November’s midterm
elections. HHS promoted the speech on its social media channels.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, chaired Children’s Health
Defense for years. He served as the group’s chief legal counsel and
expanded it. After becoming health secretary last year, Kennedy moved at
a blistering pace to overhaul public health guidance and revamp
long-held precedents in vaccine policymaking.
Critics, among them many of the country's top medical associations, have
said the moves risk stoking vaccine hesitancy and sowing confusion among
Americans who endured a crisis of trust in their public health agencies
following the COVID-19 pandemic. That public confidence continues to
erode.
“We have not taken vaccines away from anybody. We have preserved access.
But we have started asking the questions that you and millions of
American parents have been asking for years,” Kennedy told the group.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks at
the Republican convention Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (AP
Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Mary Holland, the CEO of Children’s Health Defense, referred to Kennedy
as “Bobby” and said the group has “gratitude beyond words” to the HHS
secretary for “recognizing there are real consequential issues around
childhood vaccinations.”
Kennedy's appearance Thursday comes as the country faces its worst year
for measles since 1991 and has seen seven reported measles-associated
deaths in the last two years — more than the combined total of reported
deaths over the previous three decades.
Pennsylvania officials have reported four measles-associated deaths this
year. None of the four were vaccinated, according to the state health
department. When state officials last month announced the first two of
those deaths, it ignited a public feud between Gov. Josh Shapiro and
Kennedy.
Shapiro blasted Kennedy's appearance on the social media site X
Thursday, saying Kennedy “chose to spend his time today addressing the
premier vaccine-denial conference in America.”
Shapiro said the HHS secretary should have encouraged people to get
vaccinated for measles, "yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Instead, he pushed a narrative that continues to stoke fear and
mistrust.”
A representative from the White House did not respond to an Associated
Press request for comment on Kennedy’s appearance at the event.
Following Kennedy onstage Thursday was Andrew Wakefield, an author of a
since-discredited study that linked the MMR vaccine to autism, which has
fueled the anti-vaccine movement even though it was retracted.
Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly
concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism.
Shaughnessy Naughton, founder of 314 Action, a group that recruits
scientists to run for public office, said Kennedy's decision to give a
speech at the conference shows “the lack of seriousness he brings to HHS.”
"With a deadly measles outbreak killing people in Pennsylvania, the best
thing Kennedy can do for Americans is step aside.”
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Stobbe contributed from New York.
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