Overview

This depository documents the provably false health-related claims promoted by Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense anti-vaccine nonprofit.

Introducing the RFK Jr. Healthcare Claims Depository

RFK Jr. is the founder of Children’s Health Defense, a website that NewsGuard has found repeatedly advances false or egregiously misleading claims about vaccines and health. (Image by Democratizemedia)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services after being confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 13, 2025. Kennedy said in a Nov. 6, 2024, interview with NBC News that Trump had tasked him with returning government agencies to “the gold-standard science … empirically based evidence-based medicine,” and to “make America healthy again.” 

Since 2018, NewsGuard has tracked the health-related claims promoted by Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense anti-vaccine nonprofit. What follows are the provably false claims he has promoted, assembled in what we call The RFK Jr. Healthcare Claims Depository.    

In all, NewsGuard has to date identified 100 provably false claims that have been advanced by Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense, involving topics from COVID-19 vaccines to bird flu to the safety of fluoride in drinking water.

Along with a list of those false claims, this Depository includes all NewsGuard’s reports involving Kennedy, our Nutrition Label rating assessing the Children’s Health Defense website (ChildrensHealthDefense.org), and a transcript of a 2021 interview conducted by NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill and then-NewsGuard analyst Gabby Deutch. The transcript includes annotated fact-checks by NewsGuard’s health misinformation team of statements Kennedy made during the interview.

Editor’s Note: This page was updated on Feb. 20, 2025, to reflect Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services.