Do we like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
Our score: 2 out of 10. Real environmental work, but a long run of vaccine claims fact-checkers rate misleading and a push to curb trans youth care, with little else to set against it.
Before Washington, Kennedy was known as a green lawyer. TIME described him in 1999 as Riverkeeper's chief prosecuting attorney, with law students from Pace University helping bring more than 150 legal actions against Hudson River polluters. One case led to a 1997 deal protecting the 19 reservoirs that feed New York City's drinking water.
The harm check starts with vaccines. At his confirmation hearing he said, “I am neither. I am pro-safety.” But FactCheck.org found several of his hearing claims false or misleading, and said the fuller podcast context didn't support his account of saying “There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”
At the Children's Health Defense keynote on 17 September, FactCheck.org found familiar claims about vaccine adverse events, thimerosal and autism rates misleading. He also said HHS would look at “chemtrails”, and the fact-checkers say there is no evidence they exist. Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent 1998 study linked vaccines and autism, spoke after him.
Words became policy in January 2026, when the CDC dropped the universal recommendation for several childhood shots after a Trump memo. Kennedy said the change “rebuilds trust in public health”. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it wasn't consulted, and Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician, rejected the changes.
The Samoa row is the freshest stoush. Documents released through a lawsuit show a January 2019 letter proposing a study of Samoa's MMR vaccines, though he told senators the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines”, and he wasn't under oath. Senator Ron Wyden says he'll pursue accountability if Democrats win the Senate, while HHS calls any suggestion he lied to Congress “outright defamatory”. A deadly measles outbreak hit Samoa later that year, and the documents don't themselves say his visit caused it.
On the personal side, Vanity Fair alleged in 2024 that a former babysitter said he groped her in 1998 or 1999, and Kennedy said he wouldn't comment on it. He denied the magazine's separate claim that he ate a dog, calling the piece “a lot of garbage”. He also lost a libel suit against a Maine blogger in 2025, when a judge found he hadn't brought enough evidence.