Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate for president, talked about how a part of an interview where he said there’s “no vaccine that is safe and effective” was “misused” on Friday.
“I said that on Lex Fridman[’s] podcast,” Kennedy said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday. Host Maher agreed with him.
Kennedy explained, “And, it was an answer to a question that Lex had asked me about, ‘Are there any vaccines’ — and if you go back and look at this, ‘cause that statement has been misused, I would never say that.”
He continued, “What I said was, he asked me ‘Are there any vaccines that are safe and effective?’ And I said, ‘It appears like some of the live virus vaccines, appear to be both safe and effective.’”
“And then I said, ‘There are no vaccines that are safe and effective,’ and I was gonna continue that sentence, ‘If you ask for the product to be measured against other medical products with placebo-controlled double-blind studies.’ Lex interrupted me.”
In a podcast episode from July 2023, Kennedy said that “some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing,” when asked if he could “name any vaccines that” he thinks “are good.”
“There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” Kennedy continued before Fridman started speaking again.
Kennedy has been criticized in the past for his anti-vaccine views, even by his own family. His niece, Maeve Kennedy McKean, and siblings former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) and former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.) wrote in a Politico column from 2019 that his anti-vaccination work is “wrong” and “dangerous.”
Kennedy told Maher during the Friday night appearance that he is not “anti-vaccine,” but that the label is a “way of silencing” him.
“I’m called that because it’s a way of silencing me, but I have said for 17 years, I’m not anti-vaccine. I just want good science. People should be able to make informed choices,” Kennedy said.
“I am against vaccine mandates,” Kennedy added.
