Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will headline a conference being held by an organization he once headed that regularly expresses opposition to vaccines, the group announced on Sept. 14.
Kennedy is slated to deliver a keynote speech on Thursday during the Children’s Health Defense conference in Washington.
The conference is being held “to highlight the work of key government officials and individuals who are advocating for transparency, accountability and justice in the area of public health,” according to the organization.
The Department of Health and Human Services and Children’s Health Defense, which says its mission is to “restore and protect the health of children by eliminating exposures to environmental toxins,” did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
It will be the first time Kennedy speaks at a Children’s Health Defense event since becoming health secretary in 2025.
Kennedy was the group’s chairman from 2015 to 2023. He went on leave to run for president, ultimately ending his campaign in 2024 and endorsing then-candidate Donald Trump, who named him health secretary after winning the election.
The group aired an interview with Dr. Paul Thomas this week that alleged that for every vaccine on the childhood vaccine schedule, a child “is more likely to die from the vaccine than from the disease.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is overseen by Kennedy, says on its website that vaccines on the schedule “are very safe.”
Before stepping down from Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy regularly wrote articles for the organization criticizing vaccines, including shots against COVID-19, measles, and human papillomavirus.
The measles, mumps, rubella vaccine “is associated with seizure rates five times greater than associated with wild measles, as well as brain damage,” he said in one post in 2019.
Kennedy said during his confirmation hearings that he had no power over Children’s Health Defense. “I’m supportive of vaccines,” he told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) after Sanders held up baby clothes sold by Children’s Health Defense that said “Unvaxxed, Unafraid.”
Also scheduled to appear at the Children’s Health Defense event are Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and EpochTV host Jan Jekielek. Johnson will receive an award for engaging in oversight of the government, Children’s Health Defense said. He has received and made public records on vaccines, including a 2021 email that showed a top regulator telling National Institutes of Health officials they should study health problems that arose after vaccination.