‘God is an anti-vaxxer’: Inside the conference celebrating RFK Jr.’s rise
“God is an anti-vaxxer, and he needs you to speak up,” said Del Bigtree, a former top Kennedy political adviser and head of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network. He urged the health secretary’s supporters to press their fight at a weekend-long celebration of their newfound Washington influence.
After spending years on the fringes of the medical community and dismissed as peddlers of dangerous misinformation about vaccine safety, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, is now stronger than ever and wielding clout in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The mission has gone from the “fringe into the forefront,” Children’s Health Defense advocacy and outreach manager Stephanie Locricchio said as she kicked off the conference. She asked attendees to reduce electromagnetic radiation exposure by putting their phones on airplane mode and turning off Bluetooth.
A Washington Post-KFF poll found 1 in 6 Americans have skipped or delayed vaccinating their children, with American parents who chose to do so being more likely to home-school their children, be White and very religious, identify as Republican, or be under 35.
Peter Hildebrand, whose unvaccinated 8-year-old daughter Daisy died of measles-related complications in Texas this spring, said he would do everything in his power to protect his children from vaccines and try his best to never go to a hospital again. Children’s Health Defense had previously promoted the position that poor medical care was to blame for Daisy’s death.
“Thank God for Donald Trump. Thank God for RFK Jr.,” he said to applause. “And thank God for CHD.”
Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, who came under fire for announcing his push alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis ® to seek to end vaccine mandates in the state, spoke to the crowd about the importance of fighting for what they believe in.
“God had me go to Harvard Medical School so I could eventually come out on the other side and say what I think is right,” Ladapo said.
The booths of conference sponsors included “Blessed By His Blood,” which matches “mRNA tech-free blood donations to recipients”; ProgenaBiome, a company that analyzes people’s feces; Best EMF Products, which promotes products to protect against cellphone radiation; and a variety of other health freedom or anti-vaccine groups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/20...h-freedom/
“God is an anti-vaxxer, and he needs you to speak up,” said Del Bigtree, a former top Kennedy political adviser and head of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network. He urged the health secretary’s supporters to press their fight at a weekend-long celebration of their newfound Washington influence.
After spending years on the fringes of the medical community and dismissed as peddlers of dangerous misinformation about vaccine safety, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, is now stronger than ever and wielding clout in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The mission has gone from the “fringe into the forefront,” Children’s Health Defense advocacy and outreach manager Stephanie Locricchio said as she kicked off the conference. She asked attendees to reduce electromagnetic radiation exposure by putting their phones on airplane mode and turning off Bluetooth.
A Washington Post-KFF poll found 1 in 6 Americans have skipped or delayed vaccinating their children, with American parents who chose to do so being more likely to home-school their children, be White and very religious, identify as Republican, or be under 35.
Peter Hildebrand, whose unvaccinated 8-year-old daughter Daisy died of measles-related complications in Texas this spring, said he would do everything in his power to protect his children from vaccines and try his best to never go to a hospital again. Children’s Health Defense had previously promoted the position that poor medical care was to blame for Daisy’s death.
“Thank God for Donald Trump. Thank God for RFK Jr.,” he said to applause. “And thank God for CHD.”
Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, who came under fire for announcing his push alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis ® to seek to end vaccine mandates in the state, spoke to the crowd about the importance of fighting for what they believe in.
“God had me go to Harvard Medical School so I could eventually come out on the other side and say what I think is right,” Ladapo said.
The booths of conference sponsors included “Blessed By His Blood,” which matches “mRNA tech-free blood donations to recipients”; ProgenaBiome, a company that analyzes people’s feces; Best EMF Products, which promotes products to protect against cellphone radiation; and a variety of other health freedom or anti-vaccine groups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/20...h-freedom/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
