RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine group kicked off Instagram, Facebook

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By DAVID KLEPPER

Instagram and Facebook suspended Children’s Health Defense this week after the anti-vaccine group led by Robert Kennedy Jr. repeatedly violated rules prohibiting misinformation about COVID-19.

A nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense is one of the most influential anti-vaccine organizations active on social media, where it has spread misleading claims about vaccines and other public health measures designed to control the pandemic.

In a statement, Kennedy compared Facebook’s actions to government censorship, even though Facebook is a private company that can set and enforce its own rules about misinformation.

“Facebook is acting here as a surrogate for the federal government’s crusade to silence all criticism of draconian government policies,” Kennedy said.



FILE - Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks after a hearing challenging the constitutionality of the state legislature's repeal of the religious exemption to vaccination on behalf of New York state families who held lawful religious exemptions, during a rally outside the Albany County Courthouse Aug. 14, 2019, in Albany, N.Y. Instagram and Facebook have suspended Children's Health Defense from its platforms for repeated violations of its policies on COVID-19 misinformation. The nonprofit led by Robert Kennedy Jr. is regularly criticized by public health advocates for its misleading claims about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/covid-technology-health-public-misinformation-28019177323c1d50b7ff28c522dde083

[hlthe2b]

1. Unbelievably tragic that RFK would go down this path. So damned deluded on this...

[GreenWave]

9. Exact opposite of his dad, uncle.

" I chose to tell people idiotic things, not because they are hard, but because they are easy!"

[ShazzieB]

21. Uncles.

Not sure which uncle you had in mind, but your comment would apply equally to both Jack and Teddy.

[GreenWave]

23. I did mean the President

with my paraphrasing about why we need to go to the moon. But you are right and I apologize for not thinking about Ted.

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. It's how he makes his living

He represents parents who believe their children were harmed by vaccines and shakes down the vaccine manufacturers. Usually they settle out of court, because since he's a KENNEDY, they fear there's more chance he'll win MILLIONS. They cut their losses and he gets his percentage of the settlement.

[womanofthehills]

30. Wrong - Vaccine makers have no liability for vaccine injury in US

Health & Human Services pay out for injuries in their National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program which has awarded over $3.9 billion for vaccine injury. The government has picked 100 lawyers to be in this program so you have to get a lawyer from their list.
From Dept of Justice:

l The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, as amended, created a unique mechanism for compensating persons injured by vaccinations. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (the "VICP" or the "Program&quot (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-10 et seq.) is an alternative to traditional products liability and medical malpractice litigation for persons injured by their receipt of one or more of the standard childhood vaccines.

The VICP is designed to encourage vaccination by providing a streamlined system for compensation in rare instances where an injury results from vaccination. Over the past 30 years, the VICP has succeeded in providing a less adversarial, less expensive, and less time-consuming system of recovery than the traditional tort system that governs medical malpractice, personal injury, and product liability cases. More than 6,000 people have been paid in excess of $3.9 billion (combined) since the Program’s 1988 inception.

“Individuals who believe they have been injured by a covered vaccine can file a claim against the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims seeking compensation from the Vaccine Trust Fund. Civil Division, Torts Branch attorneys in the Office of Vaccine Litigation defend HHS against claims filed under the VICP, and ensure that fair compensation is awarded in every case meeting the eligibility criteria. “https://www.justice.gov/civil/vicp

[TexasBushwhacker]

37. Note, it says "by a covered vaccine"

For example, I had a student whose brother was harmed by the pertussis component of the DPT vaccine. They is a known, but tiny, risk associated with that vaccine. Her parents filed a claim on his behalf and received a settlement.

There is no known link between vaccines and autism spectrum disorders, so lawsuits still happen. He is also co-counsel on a lawsuit against Merck for the Gardisil vaccine.

https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxic-tort-law/robert-f-kennedy-jr-/

[womanofthehills]

38. Injuries by DPT - settlement is from the government

Under U.S. law, vaccines approved by the FDA and part of the CDC recommended vaccine schedule for children are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, where the manufacturer of the vaccine cannot be sued. You have to sue the U.S. Government in their special “Vaccine Court.” Not the vaccine manufacturer. Childhood vaccines are very safe because they have been studied for many years. There has never been a class action lawsuit on the maker on any of the childhood vaccines that I am aware of - - I know there was a California class action for autistic kids to get more programs. Gardisil does not have the history of being studied for a long time like the older childhood vaccines.

I don’t understand what you are saying. The article you sent says -“The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out millions of dollars in damages for Gardasil-induced injuries and deaths.”

As far as the class action lawsuits against Gardisil, Merck argued to the judge that all the cases had to go thru the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and lose before they could sue Merck. Judge ordered they did not and could consolidate all the cases before one judge. I think they now have 150 cases but expect hundreds more. Other countries also having class action suits - 700 girls in Columbia .

https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/health-lawsuits-united-states-f99aa981a56e55c289a6ec6e2d45d84e

[Maine Abu El Banat]

2. Polios back

Great job anti-vac crowd.

[Warpy]

14. It's back thanks to the Sabin vaccine

but the tragedy is that it will infect a lot of people who listened to these loons instead of protecting themselves and their children.

I'm glad their megaphone got taken away from them. It should have been done over a decade ago.

Oh, I'm a free speech fundy, he and his fellow lunatics can believe and say whatever they want to. However, anyone who publishes their nonsense is begging for lawsuits. That's really the difference, reckless speech does carry some liability, whether a knuckle sandwich in a bar or a lawsuit against an outfit that makes it look official.

[Hestia]

26. You threw out Sabin vaccine, is there something you know?

from 8/8/22 - https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-duration-protection.html

from 2019 https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/home/topics/prevention/sabin-strain-polio-vaccine-noninferior-to-conventional-vaccine/

from 2006 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16808333/

[Warpy]

28. Yes, viral reversion in the gut.

It means the weakened virus will provoke immunity in people taking the vaccine, but the virus reverts to its fully infectious form in the human gut. People who have taken the Sabin vaccine can shed fully infectious virus in their stool for up to six weeks.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC320200/

[womanofthehills]

31. Polio never left the world- and until it's eradicated

In Asia, Africa, Ukraine etc and airplaanes fly - there will always be a danger. Our dead virus vax will keep us from getting sick but not from transferring it. There is a new live vax, which if used all over the world, could possibly eradicate polio.

[Warpy]

34. Maybe, as lopg as viral reversion doesn't occur again

In addition, the Salk vaccine protected people against illness by mobilizing an immune response so that any virus in the system would be eradicated before sufficient replication took place.

The new oral, live virus vaccine is still being tested. If there is a viral reversion problem, they want to know it sooner than 10 years after rollout.

[womanofthehills]

35. I agree with you about censorship

Robert just interviewed Jeffrey Sacks - the chair of the commission that went over to China to see where the virus originated.

Jeffry said the whole group was compromised. This interview came out and he was censored. He also said polio would not turn into a pandemic in US because most people are vacxxed.



“The commission’s chair, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, says he was concerned that five of the 12 task force members, including the original and current chairs, had potential conflicts of interest because of their direct and indirect ties to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of the origin debate. But Gerald Keusch, the current chair, charges that Sachs didn’t trust that the task force members would give the lab-origin hypothesis a fair evaluation and attempted to influence how they conducted their work, including demanding access to confidential interviews with experts on both sides of the debate whom they promised not to identify.”

“ As new details of EcoHealth’s work and its collaborators were revealed, Sachs says, his doubts grew. “It was not well known to me how potentially conflicted he was.”

Sachs adds that he requested to see EcoHealth’s grants with NIH, but Daszak refused. “In the spring, I asked him for NIH grants and proposals he made, and he told me those were confidential,” Sachs says. “I said there was no way he could be task force chair or on the commission if he didn’t share those.” The other 11 people on the task force refused to remove Daszak from their ranks, but agreed to make Keusch their chair instead.
https://www.science.org/content/article/fights-over-confidentiality-pledge-and-conflicts-interest-tore-apart-covid-19-origin-probe

[Vinca]

3. If they get polio none of them will be able to post anyway. Stupid, stupid people.

[IronLionZion]

6. Most antivaxxers are vaxxed

they screw over their children.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. Exactly right

My step daughter is an antivaxer. We made sure she had all her vaccinations. Her hubby's parents did too. Her hubby was forced to get vaccinated or lose his job.

It's the 3 beautiful little girls who never got any vaccinations. They always have a runny nose and cough, the few times I've seen them at my family's events before COVID. Now I just avoid them because of COVID.

I don't know how she can risk their lives like that. But none of them have caught one those horrible diseases.....yet. I hope they don't catch polio or measeles.

She claims they all caught COVID about 6 months ago, and they were fine. But she never got tested so she doesn't really know.

[womanofthehills]

32. Luckily, 90% of people who get polio have no symptoms

However, if they got the live vaccine they might shed it in their feces. This is what is happening around the world. I think babies in Ukraine are now getting both the live and the dead vaccines to cover all the bases till the newer better live vaccine is more available.

[hatrack]

4. And it only took . . . how many years?

Jesus.

[Owl]

5. It's about time.

[Paladin]

7. Way the hell overdue.

I got sick of RFK Jr. trashing his father's good name years ago.

[Bayard]

8. Robert should have stuck to environmental issues

He fell into the rabbit hole.

[Hestia]

27. Agreed - his No Nukes (Indian Creek Nuclear Reactor) campaigns & awareness were

great - it's how he got such a broad audience; of course, name recognition helped greatly. Unfortunately, he took that same audience and used them in his anti-vax campaign. I'm "assuming" that there is money being chased somewhere.

[NNadir]

40. Not really. They too were crimes against humanity.

[Zeitghost]

42. His anti-nuke stance is much, much worse

Few things have propped up the fossil fuel industry like the fear mongering anti-nuclear movement.

[womanofthehills]

33. Robert did just save us from Monsanto's poisons

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wins historic $290 million case against giant Monsanto and Roundup weed-killer

This is the first of thousands of cases of this type to go to trial and Kennedy said, "This (verdict) should send a strong message to the boardroom of Monsanto."
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/robert-f-kennedy-case-monsanto-roundup-weed-killer

[electric_blue68]

43. Then it's good that he's still doing some seriously useful work, but his anti-vax stuff is awful

The only qualifier... I guess he could still represent cases were there is a serious chance that a more long standing vaxcine causes harm.

Those rare cases were a person usually a child is harmed should get some compensation from the government since the drug companies aren't liable for it (if I read that correctly).

[barbtries]

10. good news.

when my friend's daughter claimed to me that the vaccine was the reason for the delta variant i traced the BS claim to him.

[womanofthehills]

36. That wasn't Robert - it was Geert VanDen Bossche

Geert is a very pro vaccine virologist who made the rounds saying it’s a bad idea to vaxx in the middle of a pandemic because you encourage mutations. He was saying it’s kind of like a no win situation - and we did get lots of mutations.

I have no opinion on this - just telling you the person who said it.

[Phoenix61]

13. He's proof there's one in every family.

Glad FB finally booted him.

[BigmanPigman]

25. I bet the rest of his family is disgusted with him.

[Novara]

15. anti-vaxxers are pathologically selfish and should be marooned on their own island

They are not fit to live in society. Living in a society demands some sacrifices for the good of society. Most good people are more than willing to make those small sacrifices as part of the human pact with each other. They failed that test.

Terminally selfish people who endanger others because they are selfish should be banished.

[ShazzieB]

22. It's offensive to me that the rest of us are forced to live among them.

We can't even avoid them, because there's no way to tell which ones they are. 😬

[pandr32]

17. I am so glad to hear this.

The damage this man has done is incalculable.

[Mike Nelson]

18. Strange...

... to see him like this... I imagine Twitter has banned him, too? RFK Jr. now exclusively on Parler, MeWe, Gab & Truth Social. Strange...

[ificandream]

19. I was lucky enough to see his dad in No. California shortly before he was murdered.

It's so damn tragic his son has turned to the Dark Side.

[sybylla]

20. Glad but confused.

I report posts all the time that push misinformation and none of them are ever removed. Maybe if RFK and his lies are no longer out there, they'll have more time for the day-to-day anti-vax ninnies.

[imavoter]

24. He's been anti vax for years

I remember around 2004 or 5
I must have been listening to old Air America
or something off the internet...
and he was spouting anti vax
autism crap back then.

[Wolf Frankula]

29. Poor little Bobbers Junior

He thinks the only drug you should take is heroin, which you should buy from him or his friends.

Wolf

[riversedge]

41. Good.