I can have no truck with an anti-vaxxer. They are as much my enemy as any global warming denier.

Here is RFK being quoted at link posted
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told me that the book he commissioned has a chapter “we were going to leave out, because it’s so controversial, but the evidence is so strong that thimerosal causes autism,” that he’s keeping it in.
Yet in the next breath he said he wasn’t going to publish the book (even though it has a publisher and is going through edits right now) because it is so explosive that he doesn’t want it to prompt a mass panic: “I don’t want parents to stop vaccinating their kids.” (“I’m pro-vaccine,” he insisted several times during the call.)

http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/robert_kennedy_jr_vaccines_aut.php?page=all

Kennedy states he believes there is strong evidence thimerosal causes autism. Yet every major scientific and medical organization in the country has evaluated the evidence and concluded that the preservative thimerosal is safe. The question is settled scientifically. Thimerosal, out of an abundance of caution, was removed from childhood vaccines 13 years ago, although it is used in some flu vaccines. And yet Kennedy, perhaps more than any other anti-vaccine zealot, has confused parents into worrying that vaccines, which have saved more lives than almost any other public health practice in history, could harm their children.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism/
http://www2.aap.org/immunization/families/mmr.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/07/robert_f_kennedy_jr_profile_in_the_washington_post_anti_vaccine_theory_and.html
http://time.com/3012797/vaccine-rfk-jr-thimerosal/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/23/robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-twisted-anti-vaxx-history.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/robert-kennedy-jrs-belief-in-autism-vaccine-connection-and-its-political-peril/2014/07/16/f21c01ee-f70b-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html

He had an article retracted at Salon a few years ago because of its false and deadly innacuracies.

This is a good run-down of his idiocy:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/06/13/robert_f_kennedy_jr_followup_on_his_antivaccination_claims.html

He believes this despite a vast amount of evidence that he’s grossly wrong. Despite test after test, a link from thimerosal to autism has never been shown. But Kennedy chooses to ignore the huge number of researchers who say this and instead focuses on a cherry-picked few, including some with somewhat, ah, shaky credentials.

While I’ve written about Kennedy once or twice before, the fact that he was the keynote speaker at an anti-vaccination (and generally anti-science alternative medicine) convention was what prompted me to write what I did. That, plus my editor, Laura Helmuth, asked me to. She had seen Keith Kloor’s article about Kennedy over at Discover and knew this was up my alley. I thought it was a good idea, and there you go.

Not long after my post went up, the emails came in … from Kennedy’s office. They contacted Helmuth asking if I would speak with Kennedy to correct some errors in my post. Helmuth relayed the request to me. I laughed and told her no thanks; I’ve dealt with conspiracy theorists like him before and knew what a brain-melty experience that phone call would be (as, unfortunately, Kloor found out first-hand). Instead, I told her, have his office write down where they think I was wrong with corrections, and I’d look them over to issue corrections as needed. This is what I did in the case of an article dissecting the selling out of science by the Canadian government a few weeks ago. (As I expected, the Ministry of Science and Technology sent me nitpicks, with the substance of my claims left unchallenged.)

What happened next in this saga still has me chuckling wryly and shaking my head. Kennedy’s office declined to write and enumerate any of my supposed errors but wanted to call instead. Helmuth agreed to this and decided to take Kennedy’s call herself. What unfolded was eerily as I predicted. Kennedy ranted at her for the better part of an hour. At one point he claimed more than one scientist supports him. Interestingly, when Helmuth contacted one of these scientists, he said Kennedy “completely misrepresented” him. Another scientist she contacted said much the same thing.

Shocker. I knew that would be the case. Listening to Kennedy’s radio show and reading his articles leads to an all-too-clear conclusion: When it comes to vaccines, he has all the signs of a crackpot. He ignores (or dismisses) evidence that contradicts him, he clings to cherry-picked (or quote-mined) evidence and clearly wrong evidence that supports him, he imagines vast conspiracies, he says scientists at the CDC are criminals, ad nauseum. His history is full of him saying such things.

The article reads like it is from someone who hates Kennedy's.

Like many on this thread.

There is no real science which claims injecting new babies with mercury is perfectly fine and dandy. None, nowhere.

him had he not been murdered by a hater. There is so much hatred for people who care about others in this country, it is disturbing.

So Kennedy is your enemy. We get it.

For most Democrats he is a true friend having earned that title due to his years of work for causes that are so important to Democrats.

Great guy. You can a lot about a person as much by those who hate them as by those who love him. By that standard, Kennedy is doing great.

All he wants is for the unnecessary mercury preservative to be removed from the flu vaccines that are given to pregnant women and children. This is about vaccine safety, not about being against vaccines.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/robert-kennedy-jrs-belief-in-autism-vaccine-connection-and-its-political-peril/2014/07/16/f21c01ee-f70b-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html

“We know from the biological literature that extremely low doses are harmful,” says Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist and autism researcher at Harvard University. “To me, it’s a no-brainer. Why would you put a neurotoxin in vaccines?”

Herbert accompanied Kennedy and Hyman in Washington. The discourse on vaccination is so highly charged that “you can’t say anything without immediately being labeled,” she says. “This is the most delicate issue I’ve ever dealt with in my life.”

But who's counting?

at Harvard makes more sense to me, and she agrees that mercury has no place in vaccines for pregnant women an children.

Anybody pushing that is lying or stupid.

The flu vaccines that pregnant women and children are recommended to receive still can contain mercury.

That's according to the CDC, not the collective myths of the DU.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several formulations of the seasonal flu vaccine, including multi-dose vials and single-dose units. (See Table of Approved Influenza Vaccines for the U.S. 2014–2015 Season.) Since seasonal influenza vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual vaccination campaigns, some of the vaccine is produced in multi-dose vials, and contains thimerosal to safeguard against possible contamination of the vial once it is opened.

many times that lying smear is used against him. I wonder how much they paid to smear this great Democrat? Same old lies, different subject, always aimed at people who are on the side of the people. Shame to see anyone here buying these smear campaigns.

Kennedy is not against vaccines. But if you want to listen to Big Pharma over a great Democrat, that is your choice.

He is also, as it happens, a full-blown anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist.

And I do mean full-blown. RFK Jr. has a long history of adhering to crackpot ideas about vaccines, mostly in the form of the now thoroughly disproven link to autism. He’s been hammering this issue for a decade now, and his claims appear to be no better and no more accurate now than they were when he first started making them.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/06/05/robert_f_kennedy_jr_advocate_for_antiscience_and_antivaccination.html


more

http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Celebrity-doesn-t-come-with-an-M-D-5742068.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/25/the-consequences-of-anti-vaccine-activism/

out of the flu vaccines that are still given to pregnant women and children. And he's not alone in thinking that neurotoxins shouldn't be deliberately added to these vaccines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/robert-kennedy-jrs-belief-in-autism-vaccine-connection-and-its-political-peril/2014/07/16/f21c01ee-f70b-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html

“We know from the biological literature that extremely low doses [of mercury] are harmful,” says Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist and autism researcher at Harvard University. “To me, it’s a no-brainer. Why would you put a neurotoxin in vaccines?”

Herbert accompanied Kennedy and Hyman in Washington. The discourse on vaccination is so highly charged that “you can’t say anything without immediately being labeled,” she says. “This is the most delicate issue I’ve ever dealt with in my life.”

Then we can have this...

http://www.bustle.com/articles/40188-the-anti-vaccination-movement-in-la-has-left-many-schools-largely-unvaccinated

And yes he is not alone in his thinking.
Plenty of other asshats support his nutty views.

Her credentials are superior to yours.

Her publication record does not support here assertions:


From Science-Based Medicine:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/crank-conferences-a-parody-of-science-based-medicine-that-can-suck-in-even-reputable-scientists-and-institutions/

Dr. Herbert is, it turns out, a big fan of the idea that autism has something to do with neuroinflammation. Unfortunately, none of her publications persuasively presents evidence for this hypothesis, and lately she’s publishing in bottom-feeding alternative medicine journals articles with titles like Learning From the Autism Catastrophe: Key Leverage Points. Suffice it to say, Dr. Herbert is big on “biomedical” woo, so much so that anti-vaccine propagandist David Kirby likes to cite her and Age of Autism loves her. Unfortunately, for all her grandiose claims that neuroinflammation is a major cause of autism and that mold and other environmental influences trigger it, Dr. Herbert’s publication record does not support these assertions. Go ahead. Head over to PubMed and look at Dr. Herbert’s publication record. I’ll wait. She has listed 15 publications about autism, of which:

six are review articles
two are in alt-med journals, and one of these is an interview
one is a paper with dozens of authors reporting the results of mapping autism risk loci using genetic linkage and chromosomal rearrangements. (Dr. Herbert is solidly right in the middle of the huge pack of authors.)
Of the remainder, Dr. Herbert only appears to be first author or senior author on four publications on autism containing original research, and these appear to be all imaging studies of the brains of autistic children. In other words, Dr. Herbert is making claims far beyond what her publication record in the peer-reviewed literature can, even under the most charitable interpretation possible, support. Nothing in her publication record appears to support her concept of autism being a systemic, rather than brain-based condition. There’s nothing there to support a link between autism and gut disorders; nothing to support a link between autism and immune dysfunction; and nothing to support a link between “environmental influences” and autism. That’s not to say that there aren’t environmental factors that influence the development of autism; it’s just that there’s nothing in Dr. Herbert’s publication record to support such a hypothesis or to identify what, if anything, those environmental factors might be.

This is the “keynote speaker.” She is, however, faculty at Harvard University.

Not defending him, but it's just a damn shame.

cuz he's a Kennedy.

We all know he's a Democrat and he had great stuff to say regarding the environment.
You going to do an OP telling us Al Gore is a Democrat and environmentalist next?

about the environment. He has been a great champion of the environment and his actions helped clean up the Hudson River.

He doesn't deserve the slurs people throw at him here.

His position on mercury in vaccines can be disagreed with without other Democrats resorting to vicious name calling.

These are the same people who love to come to a thread just to throw up on it. They excel in snide remarks and can't leave enough of them… It's smells like a badly run nursing home reading them.

Idiots will be vicious on DU when it comes to RFK Jr. It proves how ignorant they are on anything the man has said or did.

I don't think he's untouchable

...why didn't he support the Cape Wind Project?

Sid

Now, he can go fuck himself with a rake.

pushed on the public by big Pharma without adequate testing. I sense a character assassination attempt against him by those he has brought under scrutiny with various class action suits he's behind for bad drugs causing harm to people victimized by big pharma.

that some well-meaning DUers are inadvertently supporting.

There is a critical difference between advocating vaccine and drug safety and being anti-vaccine or anti-pharma.

you think these silent in the face of children slaughtered by US policy and tacit approval suddenly grew a conscience only so big?
I dont. Theres a hard push from big money to cover their crimes.

It doesn't matter WHAT he's done for the environment. That doesn't change the fact that he is a dangerous idiot who is spreading fear and falsehood. There have been repeated studies related to the impact of thimerosal that found no link to autism. The vaccine most frequently (and wrongly) linked to autism (MMR) never had thimerosal. Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines completely in 2002. Rates of autism prevalence did not decrease. This last fact alone is sufficient to discredit the "thimerosal causes autism" hypothesis.

... that are doing such a service to science in providing decent alternatives to oil, solar, and other forms of energy...

Look at all of these "ass hats" working on this totally "anti-science" film...



http://thelastmountainmovie.com/film/

Sorry about posting this totally unacceptable film that just insults the very honorable Massey Energy Company so much!

We should be just drinking mercury and thank Massey Energy for helping us do so! It is SO good for us and science shows that!

( HEAVY !! )

And so many here should be making sure to help shut down that thread suggesting we put in RFK, Jr.'s Ring of Fire buddie's name, Mike Papantonio, in the mix to replace Eric Holder too! A mission for you who all feel the need to protect Corporate America from the onslaught of the rabble!

.. which is an attack on his character not SPECIFICALLY on his postition on vaccines, which one could have a more constructive argument and point out where he's wrong, and others can defend that.

When you call him "asshat", you are smearing everything else good he's done too.

It's kind of like labeling Ralph Nader a "jerk" and therefore saying that "jerks" are the ones that want to regulate companies like Pinto to have them make sure that their gas tanks don't explode. That's not a specific reference to a name on Nader, but he's been called the like many times here, and we don't really facilitate constructive discussion here by calling people names, especially those that have done a lot of good for us in other ways.

If you have a problem with what he's done, point to an article that makes it clear that he's wrong to make your case, and then perhaps you can qualify what you are saying by adding, "I feel that he could have taken a better side in this area and because he hasn't, I feel let down and feel like he's being a jerk specifically for <blah>"...

Then you can show your emotions, but not just direct at him generally, which isn't helpful for us to deal with the issues you are concerned with, but just has us all engage in divisive discussions. If you can point to very specific areas where an argument can be made that he's wrong and done certain things he shouldn't have in the course of pursuing that action, that is far more persuasive than general pejoratives that many here that appreciate so many other things he's done won't accept.

With many here getting attacked like that (Greenwald, Snowden, Nader, and now RFK, Jr. amongst others), I think we really need to qualify emotional adjectives when characterizing figures like this. Maybe DU can have some sort of biography forum, with sticky threads on certain figures that have discussions of their positions in a certain area. And then when people call these people "jerks" in other forums, if they don't want to get called out for not being constructive in critiquing them, they can point back to a thread in that forum to back up their position. That might be more helpful both to the reader to get more background on this characterization, and to the poster with strong feelings not having to textually explain him/herself at lengths every time they put up emotional statements on such a figure.

His position on vaccines is wrong, stupid, and dangerous. He is misusing the public platform he has on account of his name to spread fear and falsehood. I wouldn't call him an "asshat", personally (and haven't; you can check my posting history, assuming you can work out how to use the search function; so I'd thank you to not claim I have done).

I'm not the only one who has a problem with what he's done. Rolling Stone and Salon published a piece making many of the same vaccine-related claims by RFK Jr in 2005. That piece has been retracted since:

What is so awful about that?

Thimerosal was removed from the vaccines in the standard childhood schedule some years ago, but after that the flu vaccine began to be recommended for pregnant women as early as first trimester, and for babies and toddlers -- and that flu vaccine is allowed to contain thimerosal. So they took it out of most vaccines, but then added in a new vaccine that contained it -- a new vaccine that can be given in the most vulnerable months of pregnancy.

He claims that thimerosal causes autism. That claim is unsupported by evidence. There have been numerous studies which have to date found no link between thimerosal and autism, or vaccination and autism.

... but don't you see how my concern is that people resort in to the oversimplification of just using name calling to go after him, rather than having a rational discussion. I haven't studied this issue as much as I have in the past his efforts to limit mercury poisoning from river pollution by coal mining and many other areas. I've very much liked his efforts in trying to protect our health and environment there. I can understand how he might be wrong and perhaps even his approach is a bit too dogmatic too. That should be the way to frame a discussion and not just call him an "asshat" because he's an "anti-vaxxer" which for me does NOTHING to explain why he deserves such expletives thrown at him after I've known him to do many good things. All we do is getting people in heated arguments here, when if we approached it constructively, you might persuade a lot of people to temper their feelings about him. I'm open to hearing constructive discussions on this, but my immediate reaction to name calling is that it is paid for by those interests looking to bring him down (which there are probably many of out there, kind of like many that like to have Glen Greenwald or Eric Snowden be labeled "Libertarians" without much detail on how that is and what context there is that invalidates so much of the valuable things they have done for us).

I'm not trying to say that RFK, Jr hasn't done anything to deserve criticism. What I am saying is that if someone does have criticism for him, they should be prepared to back up adjectives with substance for me to fully appreciate their feelings on the subject they're concerned about.

And it would be really helpful if you could STFU about "assshat" which is a word I haven't used in relation to RFK Jr or anyone else, thanks.

after watching the vicious smear campaign against this man, who has done nothing but good in his life that I know of, for the people and the planet.

When I see someone who I KNOW to be a good person being attacked like this, in such a vicious way, I get suspicious, especially when I see WHO is doing it.

Being uninformed enough to offer an opinion on the actual topic, I am left with looking at WHO has mad a campaign out of attacking RFK Jr, a great Democrat right here on a Dem Forum, worse than any I've seen on Right Wing forums against the Kennedys.

After doing that, looking at the sources of these attacks, until I learn more, I am going with a man we have been able to trust over the years, rather than some of those who we KNOW we cannot trust on ANYTHING when it comes to Liberal issues.

So, my position until someone way, way more credible than his attackers here, proves me wrong, with RFK Jr. Meantime I will check into the subject and make a more informed decision.

It goes like this for me. If YOU are an 'asshat' yourself, you have no credibility with me. And if YOU have been a courageous and honest defender of Liberal Issues, you get the benefit of the doubt with me.

pwnmom...

One would think it would be relatively easy to get a consensus on not injecting mercury or aluminum into a small child but apparently that is not the case.

and expert on autism who is also speaking out.

But you know better, of course.

He's as much an "expert" as my old shoes are.

If she says in any way vaccines cause autism, she's a quack.

And BTW, what is this "neurotoxin?"

are supposed to take.

It was removed from the original vaccine schedule some years ago. But since then they added the flu vaccines during pregnancy, when they can even be given during the first trimester. They also recommended that babies and toddlers be given the flu vaccine. So while they took it out of some vaccines, they added in a new vaccine (the flu vaccine) that contained it -- and the baby is exposed in utero, during the most critical time of its development.

Hebert believes that some people are genetically predisposed to get autism -- but that a mix of environmental factors may trigger the onset of the actual disease. This is the case for many diseases, that genetics interact with environment to produce the outcome.

Here is a presentation of hers on autism, if you really are interested.

http://www.autismcanada.org/pdfs/CalgaryPresentations10/MarthaHerbert.pdf

Obviously, no.

Yet a part of saline (salt solution) is chlorine.
A poison gas that killed thousands in WW1, and may have killed dozens in Syria.

But as a compound with sodium (an explosive metal) it goes into your body as saline.

Mercury in it's pure form is a neurotoxin.
But compounded with other elements makes an excellent preservative that causes *NO* harm.

Herbert may be correct in what causes autism.
In some cases.

But it has *ZERO* to do with the stuff hysterics call poison, or vaccinations.

My own family is excellent evidence of vaccinations having nothing to do with autism. Period.

JFC.

Her mind is made up and nailed shut with her preconceptions.

Agree 110%. Anyone who has read RFK Jr's 2005 Thimerosal article knows the permanent swiftboat campaign launched against him is a load of RW crap. And anyone who honestly thinks it isn't hasn't read his article, and should really should before mouthing off against a smart and fearless friend of all people who care about the earth and its inhabitants:

http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/docs/ThimerosalScandalFINAL.PDF

But they won't, sigh . . . .

And sorry, it is not a vicious lie.

Just because his father was a good guy does not mean that RFK Jr. is not a fool, and an ignorant fool at that.

Fuck RFK Jr. and Jenny McCarthy and her idiot spouse, Jim Carrie, and Meryl Dorey. And most of all fuck Andrew Wakefield, the idiot who helped foist all of this anti-vaccination quackery on the world. Of course, in the UK he was struck off the rolls (forbidden to practice medicine). But here in the USA he can still practice his abject quackery.

And yes, they all have a body count.