2026-09-18T16:28:11-0400 / 美联社
美国卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪周四在一个他曾担任主席的反疫苗活动人士组织的会议上发表主旨演讲，对到场的数百名听众表示，他们在唐纳德·特朗普总统的白宫里拥有一位盟友。
这是肯尼迪担任部长以来首次出席“儿童健康辩护”组织的会议。肯尼迪2023年宣布竞选总统时曾暂停该组织的职务，但周四的演讲堪称一场“归乡之旅”：他借这个平台称赞本届政府缩减疫苗指南的举措，并向到场的活动人士保证，他正努力将他们的诉求转化为政策。
“我要明确一点：你们在白宫拥有一位坚定可靠的盟友。我们在19个月里做成了两年前看起来不可思议的事，”他说。
这场演讲中充斥着对早已定论的疫苗安全性的质疑，同时也凸显出，曾经属于边缘观点的疫苗争议言论，在特朗普政府时期获得了重要的发声平台。
肯尼迪吹嘘本届政府缩减儿童疫苗接种时间表、重组关键疫苗咨询委员会的举措——这些措施后来已被法官叫停。
肯尼迪称赞特朗普推进改革疫苗指南的行动，包括上月签署的一项行政令，要求推迟接种麻疹、腮腺炎和风疹联合疫苗，这违背了医疗团体的建议。
这项行政令，再加上肯尼迪此次在“儿童健康辩护”会议上的主旨演讲，标志着白宫和卫生与公众服务部的政策转向：今年早些时候，他们似乎正打算摆脱疫苗相关议题，在11月的中期选举前转向争议性更小的健康食品议程。卫生与公众服务部还在其社交媒体渠道上宣传了这场演讲。
长期投身反疫苗活动的肯尼迪曾担任“儿童健康辩护”主席多年，还担任过该组织的首席法律顾问并推动其发展。去年就任卫生部长后，肯尼迪以惊人的速度全面改革公共卫生指南，重塑疫苗政策领域长期遵循的先例。
包括美国众多顶级医学协会在内的批评人士表示，这些举措可能加剧疫苗犹豫情绪，让在新冠疫情后本就对公共卫生机构失去信任的美国民众更加困惑。公众对卫生机构的信任度仍在持续下滑。
“我们没有剥夺任何人的疫苗接种机会，我们保留了接种渠道。但我们开始提出你们和数百万美国父母多年来一直在问的问题，”肯尼迪对该组织成员说。
“儿童健康辩护”组织首席执行官玛丽·霍兰德以“鲍比”称呼肯尼迪，并表示该组织对这位卫生部长“感激不尽”，感谢他“认识到儿童疫苗接种领域存在真正值得重视的重大问题”。
周四的这场演讲之际，美国正遭遇自1991年以来最严重的麻疹疫情，过去两年报告了7例与麻疹相关的死亡病例——超过此前三十年报告的死亡病例总和。
宾夕法尼亚州官员报告称，今年已有4例与麻疹相关的死亡病例。该州卫生部门表示，这4名死者均未接种疫苗。上月州政府宣布其中两起死亡病例时，引发了州长乔希·夏皮罗与肯尼迪之间的公开争执。
夏皮罗周四在社交媒体平台X上批评肯尼迪的这场演讲，称肯尼迪“今天选择把时间花在全美顶级的疫苗否认会议上”。
夏皮罗表示，卫生与公众服务部部长本应鼓励民众接种麻疹疫苗，“但他却没能做到这一点。相反，他宣扬的论调仍在煽动恐惧和不信任”。
白宫一名代表未回应美联社就肯尼迪出席此次活动置评的请求。
周四紧随肯尼迪上台演讲的是安德鲁·韦克菲尔德，他曾发表过一份已被彻底推翻的研究，声称麻疹、腮腺炎和风疹联合疫苗与自闭症有关，尽管该研究已被撤回，但仍为反疫苗运动提供了“弹药”。
广泛的科学共识和数十年的研究已明确证实，疫苗与自闭症之间不存在关联。
314行动组织创始人肖尼西·诺顿表示，肯尼迪选择在此次会议上发表演讲，表明他“对待卫生与公众服务部的工作毫无严肃性”。314行动是一个招募科学家参选公职的组织。
“宾夕法尼亚州正在发生致命的麻疹疫情，造成人员死亡，肯尼迪能为美国民众做的最好的事就是辞职下台。”
RFK Jr. tells anti-vaccine activists they have a friend in Trump’s White House
2026-09-18T16:28:11-0400 / AP
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote address Thursday at a conference of an anti-vaccine activist group he once chaired, telling the hundreds in attendance that they had a friend in President Donald Trump’s White House.
It was Kennedy’s first time appearing at the Children’s Health Defense conference since he became secretary. Kennedy took leave from the group when he launched his bid to become president in 2023, but his speech Thursday served as a sort of homecoming, offering him a platform from which to hail the administration’s steps to scale back vaccine guidance and reassure the activists in attendance that he was working to turn their priorities into policy.
“Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White House. We’ve accomplished in 19 months things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago,” he said.
The speech, peppered with questions about long-established vaccine safety, also highlighted how once fringe views on vaccines have been given a prominent pulpit under the Trump administration.
Kennedy boasted about the administration’s moves to downsize the childhood vaccination schedule and reshape a key vaccine advisory board — steps that have since been halted by a judge.
Kennedy lauded Trump for pushing ahead with attempts to overhaul vaccine guidance, including an executive order last month calling for spacing out the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, against medical groups’ recommendations.
That executive order and now Kennedy’s keynote speech at the Children’s Health Defense conference mark a pivot by the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, who earlier this year had appeared to be moving beyond vaccine efforts and toward a less contentious agenda on healthy food ahead of November’s midterm elections. HHS promoted the speech on its social media channels.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, chaired Children’s Health Defense for years. He served as the group’s chief legal counsel and expanded it. After becoming health secretary last year, Kennedy moved at a blistering pace to overhaul public health guidance and revamp long-held precedents in vaccine policymaking.
Critics, among them many of the country’s top medical associations, have said the moves risk stoking vaccine hesitancy and sowing confusion among Americans who endured a crisis of trust in their public health agencies following the COVID-19 pandemic. That public confidence continues to erode.
“We have not taken vaccines away from anybody. We have preserved access. But we have started asking the questions that you and millions of American parents have been asking for years,” Kennedy told the group.
Mary Holland, the CEO of Children’s Health Defense, referred to Kennedy as “Bobby” and said the group has “gratitude beyond words” to the HHS secretary for “recognizing there are real consequential issues around childhood vaccinations.”
Kennedy’s appearance Thursday comes as the country faces its worst year for measles since 1991 and has seen seven reported measles-associated deaths in the last two years — more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades.
Pennsylvania officials have reported four measles-associated deaths this year. None of the four were vaccinated, according to the state health department. When state officials last month announced the first two of those deaths, it ignited a public feud between Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kennedy.
Shapiro blasted Kennedy’s appearance on the social media site X Thursday, saying Kennedy “chose to spend his time today addressing the premier vaccine-denial conference in America.”
Shapiro said the HHS secretary should have encouraged people to get vaccinated for measles, “yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he pushed a narrative that continues to stoke fear and mistrust.”
A representative from the White House did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment on Kennedy’s appearance at the event.
Following Kennedy onstage Thursday was Andrew Wakefield, an author of a since-discredited study that linked the MMR vaccine to autism, which has fueled the anti-vaccine movement even though it was retracted.
Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism.
Shaughnessy Naughton, founder of 314 Action, a group that recruits scientists to run for public office, said Kennedy’s decision to give a speech at the conference shows “the lack of seriousness he brings to HHS.”
“With a deadly measles outbreak killing people in Pennsylvania, the best thing Kennedy can do for Americans is step aside.”