Kennedy’s anti-vaccine ideas are harmful, according to his detractors. They often use the 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa, which happened soon after Kennedy’s visit, as an example.
According to public health experts, the idea that vaccinations and autism are related is unfounded. In his earlier book “Thimerosal:
Let The Science Speak,” Kennedy connected the nation’s increase in autism to thimerosal, a preservative that was once used in mercury-containing immunizations.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield initially made that notion well known in a 1998 report that appeared in the British medical journal “The Lancet.”
