Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Meave Kennedy McKean: thank you. We in the disability community owe much to the Kennedy family. We don’t forget the gains in special education and other areas that the Kennedy family championed for us.
With that in mind, it’s been especially hard to watch Robert Kennedy Jr. spread vaccine misinformation. More, it’s been painful to see him use my community, the autism community, as his base and his weapon in his campaign.
I know it took courage to step forward and speak out against the misinformation your family member, Robert Kennedy Jr, has been spreading. Thank you.
For readers who are unaware, members of the Kennedy family wrote a piece published on Politico:
RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.
Here’s a paragraph:
These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
To the Kennedys: I am a father. I have an autistic child. Robert Kennedy positions himself as an ally, a champion of parents like myself. Let me make this clear: Robert Kennedy does not speak for me. He does not speak for more than a few autism parents. He certainly doesn’t speak my son or other autistics. He has been part of the effort to weaponize fear of disability to frighten people about vaccines. As such, he has added to the stigma my son faces.
There is another aspect to this you may not be aware of: the anti-vaccine community is closely tied to the worst in the alternative medicine movement. Robert Kennedy regularly speaks at autism parent conventions where therapies that can only be called abusive are promoted as “cures for vaccine injury”. Mr. Kennedy could speak out against these therapies. He could stand up and make himself heard and stop this abuse. Instead, he has remained silent.
In a few weeks, Mr. Kennedy will once again be speaking at the Autism One convention in Chicago. Here are some of the therapies that have been promoted at Autism One:
Chemical Castration. Mr. Kennedy’s allies in promoting the failed idea that mercury in vaccines cause autism promoted an idea that Lupron could help remove mercury from the brain, somehow treating autism. Lupron shuts down the body’s production of sex hormones. It’s basically chemical castration. (See Disability Scoop: Chemical Castration Drug Peddled As Autism Treatment). Chemical castration of disabled youth, how can anyone not see this as abuse?
Bleach Enemas. Sounds so ridiculous that it couldn’t be true, right? But there are people, presenting at the same place as Robert Kennedy Jr, claiming that a bleach solution, either as a drink or an enema, can cure autism. Somehow this treats vaccine injury, in their logic. Disabled children are exposed to enough of this bleach (Chlorine Dioxide) that they pass the lining of their intestines. These are called “worms”. It’s abuse.
Unregulated stem cell transplants. Parents have been flying their children to foreign countries to have “stem cell” infusions. This is nothing short of medical experimentation.
Chelation. Mr. Kennedy’s main theme for years involved mercury from vaccines. When my son was first diagnosed, one couldn’t get into an online autism discussion without chelation coming up. Autistic children were misdiagnosed with “mercury poisoning” by various, frankly fraudulent, tests. These tests were used to justify chelation, without the supervision of actual toxicologists. These children were never mercury intoxicated. Animal studies have shown that chelation, applied when there is no intoxication, causes cognitive decline. Think of that, disabled children may have lost cognitive gains because people believed Robert Kennedy’s message.
The list goes on and on. “Autism as Vaccine Injury” is used to sell all sorts of fake and, sometimes, abusive therapies. And no one in the anti-vaccine community, and that includes Robert Kennedy Jr., stand up to counter this movement. Instead they accept these charlatans and frauds as allies. As long as vaccines are blamed, charlatans know they can stand up in places like Autism One and not hear criticism.
Robert Kennedy could have slowed or stopped these abuses. He could have shown courage. Instead he’s been using my community as a weapon in his attack on vaccines.
To the Kennedy family: I know this is tough to read. Believe me, if anything, I’ve downplayed the harm the “vaccines cause autism” message has caused to my community. You are the people who might be able to get Robert Kennedy Jr. to stand up and start correcting the damage he’s help inflict.
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By Matt Carey
Left Brain Right Brain 
Amen. Thank you, reasonable and public-spirited Kennedys.
Also there’s the part that people always seem to forget where autistic people actually are not immune to communicable disease and these people who claim to care about the struggles of autistic children are instead raising the chances of autistic children falling victim to serious preventable illnesses as if we don’t have any well-being worth preserving to start with.