Global Fallout of RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Policies

In June 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired every member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel of scientists that had shaped U.S. vaccine policy for decades [1]. It was not an isolated act. It was the latest move in a systematic overhaul of U.S. vaccine infrastructure that has redrawn the global landscape of immunization — dismantling domestic safeguards, severing international funding pipelines, and, according to mounting evidence, contributing to a worldwide resurgence of diseases that modern medicine had nearly conquered.

The fallout extends far beyond American borders. From measles wards in Texas to meningitis outbreaks across sub-Saharan Africa, the consequences of Kennedy's tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services are being measured in hospitalizations, in funding gaps worth billions, and — increasingly — in lives lost.

But to understand the policy, one must first understand the man — and the worldview that drives him.

Dismantling the Domestic Architecture

Kennedy's overhaul of U.S. vaccine policy began almost immediately after his Senate confirmation. In May 2025, he overrode the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' recommendation on COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant women and young children [2]. The following month, he dismissed all 17 members of the committee itself, citing alleged conflicts of interest that the Infectious Diseases Society of America called "completely unfounded" [1].

The move was unprecedented. ACIP's recommendations had long served as the gold standard for determining which vaccines insurers would cover, which shots providers would recommend, and what the public could expect from the nation's immunization infrastructure. Without a functioning committee, that architecture began to crack.

Kennedy then directed the CDC to change the designation for six vaccines on the federal schedule, downgrading them from routine recommendations for children [3]. He hired David Geier, a known vaccine skeptic with a revoked medical license, to lead a study reinvestigating the long-discredited theory that vaccines cause autism [3]. In August 2025, he announced the cancellation of 22 mRNA vaccine development projects totaling nearly $500 million [4].

The Measles Reckoning

The domestic consequences arrived swiftly. In 2025, the United States recorded more than 2,200 measles cases across 45 states — the highest total since the 1990s [3]. More than 70 percent of cases were children. Ninety-three percent were unvaccinated. Eleven percent required hospitalization. Two school-aged children and one adult died [3].

By early 2026, the count had already surpassed 1,100 additional cases, with South Carolina serving as a new epicenter [5]. The sustained outbreaks put the country at risk of losing its globally recognized measles "elimination status" for the first time in decades.

The Global Shockwave

If the domestic impact was severe, the international consequences may prove more lasting. The United States had pledged $2.6 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for the 2026–2030 period — roughly 13 percent of the organization's budget. Kennedy terminated all of it, while simultaneously demanding that Gavi remove thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, from all its vaccines as a condition for any future funding [6].

The Observer Research Foundation estimated that the U.S. funding cut could leave 75 million children unvaccinated and result in over 1.2 million deaths from preventable diseases [7]. In April 2025, WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi issued a joint warning: vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks were threatening years of progress, with 138 countries reporting measles cases and 61 experiencing large or disruptive outbreaks [8].

The Other Side: What RFK Jr. Actually Believes — and Why

To dismiss Kennedy's views as mere conspiracy theory is to misunderstand both the man and the movement he leads. His arguments are more layered than his critics often acknowledge, and they resonate with a significant portion of the American public. Understanding them — on their own terms — is essential to any honest accounting of this debate.

A Personal Origin Story

Kennedy's vaccine skepticism did not begin with politics. It began, by his own account, with his children. In interviews and in his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy has described watching what he believed were neurological changes in his children following vaccination, and becoming consumed by the question of whether a causal link existed [9]. His background as an environmental lawyer — where he spent decades suing corporations and government agencies he believed were concealing the harms of industrial chemicals — gave him a framework for interpreting the vaccine debate: powerful institutions protecting themselves at the expense of public health.

"I was not looking for this issue," Kennedy told NPR in November 2024. "It found me" [10].

The Regulatory Capture Argument

Kennedy's central and most substantive argument is not that vaccines are inherently harmful, but that the agencies charged with evaluating their safety have been compromised by the industries they regulate — a phenomenon known in policy circles as "regulatory capture."

He points to the revolving door between the FDA, CDC, and pharmaceutical companies; to the fact that vaccine manufacturers were granted liability protection under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act; and to what he describes as inadequate long-term safety studies for vaccines added to the childhood schedule [9]. His argument is that the absence of liability removes the financial incentive for manufacturers to invest in rigorous post-market safety surveillance.

This is not an entirely fringe position. The 1986 Act did shield vaccine makers from most civil lawsuits, a policy Congress enacted because manufacturers were exiting the vaccine market due to litigation costs — a fact that both supporters and critics of the law acknowledge [11]. The question of whether that protection has reduced safety vigilance is genuinely contested among legal and public health scholars.

Kennedy told NPR that his goal was to "return these bodies to evidence-based science and medicine" — framing his agenda not as anti-vaccine but as pro-accountability [10].

The Thimerosal Conviction

Kennedy's longest-running specific concern is thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in some multi-dose vaccine vials. He has argued for decades that ethylmercury — the form of mercury in thimerosal — is neurotoxic and has been linked to autism and other developmental disorders. He edited a 2014 book on the subject and has repeatedly cited studies he believes support this connection [6].

The scientific consensus, as established by the World Health Organization and multiple independent reviews, is that thimerosal in the quantities used in vaccines does not cause harm [12]. The mercury in thimerosal is ethylmercury, which the body processes and eliminates far more quickly than methylmercury — the form found in contaminated fish that is known to be toxic at high doses. Dozens of epidemiological studies across multiple countries have found no association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism [12].

Kennedy disputes the methodology and independence of those studies. He argues that many were funded or conducted by parties with financial interests in the outcome, and that the studies used flawed comparison groups. His critics respond that the sheer volume and geographic diversity of the research — conducted in Denmark, the UK, Japan, Canada, and elsewhere — makes a coordinated cover-up implausible.

The Autism Question

The claim that vaccines cause autism is Kennedy's most controversial and most thoroughly examined argument. It traces to a 1998 study by British physician Andrew Wakefield, published in The Lancet, which suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The study was later retracted after investigators found that Wakefield had manipulated data and had undisclosed financial conflicts of interest [13]. Wakefield subsequently lost his medical license.

Kennedy has continued to cite the autism-vaccine connection despite the retraction, arguing that Wakefield was unfairly targeted and that the underlying question was never properly resolved [9]. He told Fox News in 2023 that "autism comes from vaccines" [13].

The BBC's fact-checking team found this claim to be false, noting that multiple large-scale studies across many countries have found no link between vaccines and autism [13]. Dr. David Elliman of Great Ormond Street Hospital stated that Kennedy has perpetuated these myths "with an utter disregard for the evidence" [13].

Kennedy's supporters counter that the dramatic rise in autism diagnoses since the 1990s — coinciding with an expansion of the childhood vaccine schedule — warrants serious investigation rather than dismissal. Mainstream researchers attribute the rise primarily to broadened diagnostic criteria and increased awareness, not to vaccines [14].

The mRNA Skepticism

Kennedy's cancellation of mRNA vaccine development contracts reflects a specific skepticism about the technology itself. He has argued that mRNA vaccines "fail to protect effectively" against COVID-19 and that the speed of their development during the pandemic meant that long-term safety data was unavailable when they were authorized [4].

FactCheck.org determined that his claim about mRNA vaccine efficacy was false, noting that the shots saved millions of lives during the pandemic [4]. But Kennedy's broader concern — that emergency authorization compressed the normal timeline for identifying rare adverse events — is shared by some scientists who nonetheless support the vaccines overall. The myocarditis signal associated with mRNA COVID vaccines in young males, for example, was real, if rare, and was identified through post-market surveillance [15].

Kennedy argues that the system for detecting such signals is inadequate, and that the public was not given sufficient information to make truly informed choices. His critics argue that the risk-benefit calculation overwhelmingly favors vaccination even accounting for rare adverse events.

The "Informed Consent" Framework

Underlying all of Kennedy's specific claims is a philosophical commitment to what he calls "informed consent" — the principle that individuals should have access to complete information about both the risks and benefits of medical interventions before making decisions. He frames vaccine mandates and the suppression of safety concerns as violations of this principle.

"The decision to vaccinate is a personal one," Kennedy has repeatedly said [3]. This framing has resonated with a libertarian-leaning constituency that is skeptical of government mandates regardless of the underlying science.

Public health experts respond that individual choice in vaccination has collective consequences — that herd immunity, the protection of immunocompromised individuals who cannot be vaccinated, and the prevention of outbreaks all depend on sufficiently high vaccination rates. The measles outbreaks of 2025 are, in their view, the empirical demonstration of what happens when that threshold is not maintained.

Competing Perspectives: The Core Disagreements

The debate between Kennedy and the mainstream public health establishment is not simply a conflict between science and ignorance. It involves genuine disagreements about institutions, evidence, and values — as well as some claims that are clearly contradicted by the scientific record.

On Vaccine Safety Science

Kennedy's position: Safety studies for vaccines are inadequate, often industry-funded, and have not used true inert placebos in clinical trials. The agencies charged with oversight have conflicts of interest that compromise their independence.

The mainstream response: Vaccines undergo extensive pre-licensure trials and post-market surveillance. The claim that no true placebo-controlled trials exist is misleading — many vaccines have been tested against placebos, and others against existing vaccines where withholding vaccination would be unethical. Post-market surveillance systems like VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) and the Vaccine Safety Datalink exist precisely to detect rare adverse events [16].

Where they agree: Both sides acknowledge that VAERS is a passive reporting system with significant limitations, and that post-market surveillance could be improved. The disagreement is about whether those limitations constitute a fundamental failure of the safety system or a manageable imperfection.

On Thimerosal

Kennedy's position: Ethylmercury is a neurotoxin, thimerosal has not been adequately studied, and its presence in vaccines used in developing countries is unjustifiable given the availability of alternatives.

The mainstream response: WHO has conducted multiple safety reviews and concluded that thimerosal at vaccine doses does not cause harm. Removing it from multi-dose vials used in low-income countries would require expensive reformulation and single-dose packaging, dramatically increasing costs and reducing access [6].

The stakes: This disagreement has direct policy consequences. Kennedy's thimerosal ultimatum to Gavi — remove it or lose U.S. funding — would, if implemented, disrupt vaccine supply chains serving hundreds of millions of children in the developing world.

On Regulatory Capture

Kennedy's position: The FDA and CDC have been captured by pharmaceutical interests, and their conclusions on vaccine safety cannot be trusted without independent verification.

The mainstream response: While conflicts of interest in regulatory agencies are a legitimate concern that scholars and policymakers have long debated, the specific claim that vaccine safety data has been systematically suppressed is not supported by evidence. The international replication of safety findings — across countries with entirely different regulatory systems and no financial stake in U.S. pharmaceutical markets — makes a coordinated cover-up implausible.

A nuanced middle ground: Some public health researchers acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry's influence on regulatory agencies warrants ongoing scrutiny, while arguing that Kennedy's response — dismantling oversight rather than strengthening it — is counterproductive.

On Informed Consent

Kennedy's position: Americans have a right to complete information about vaccine risks and benefits, and the suppression of safety concerns violates that right.

The mainstream response: Informed consent is a foundational principle of medical ethics that no serious public health authority disputes. The disagreement is about what the evidence actually shows — not about whether patients deserve accurate information.

The Evidence Gap and Its Limits

It is important to be precise about what the evidence does and does not show. The scientific consensus on several of Kennedy's specific claims is clear and well-established:

• Multiple large-scale studies have found no causal link between vaccines and autism [13].
• The WHO has concluded that thimerosal at vaccine doses does not cause harm [12].
• mRNA COVID vaccines saved millions of lives during the pandemic [4].
• The measles outbreaks of 2025 were driven overwhelmingly by unvaccinated individuals [3].

At the same time, Kennedy raises some questions that are not entirely without basis:

• The 1986 liability shield for vaccine manufacturers is a real policy with real trade-offs that scholars continue to debate [11].
• Post-market surveillance systems have genuine limitations that public health researchers acknowledge.
• Rare adverse events from some vaccines — including myocarditis from mRNA COVID vaccines in young males — are real, if uncommon, and were identified after authorization [15].

The distinction between Kennedy's legitimate questions and his unsupported claims matters enormously for policy. Strengthening post-market surveillance is a different proposition from firing every member of the nation's vaccine advisory committee. Scrutinizing pharmaceutical conflicts of interest is a different proposition from canceling $500 million in mRNA research.

What Comes Next

The trajectory is uncertain. Congressional intervention has restored some funding, but the institutional damage — disbanded advisory committees, canceled research programs, severed international partnerships — is not easily reversed. Gavi faces a multi-billion-dollar gap. mRNA research that might have yielded universal flu or coronavirus vaccines has been abandoned. And the global immunization infrastructure that took decades to build is under strain from both funding cuts and the credibility crisis that Kennedy's rhetoric has fueled [8].

Kennedy's supporters argue that the disruption is necessary — that an entrenched system resistant to accountability required a shock to reform it. His critics argue that the patients paying the price for that disruption are among the world's most vulnerable: children in low-income countries, immunocompromised Americans, and infants too young to be vaccinated who depend on community immunity for protection.

The question is no longer whether RFK Jr.'s policies will have global consequences. It is whether those consequences can be contained — and whether the legitimate questions he raises about institutional accountability can be separated from the specific claims that the scientific evidence does not support.