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When the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for young, healthy children, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed “Big Pharma conspiracy.” Then he made a threat.

On April 15, 2025, Dr. Fiona Havers, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), presented data on the impact of COVID-19 on children the previous year. She found that COVID-19 had caused thousands of children to be hospitalized, 20 percent of whom were admitted to the intensive care unit. Virtually all were unvaccinated, half were previously healthy, and 152 had died, most less than 4 years of age. 

The conclusion was clear; young children in the United States who have never been vaccinated will still benefit from a COVID-19 vaccine. Although the pandemic was over, the virus wasn’t.

Six weeks later, on May 27, Kennedy, the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a video posted on X, said that COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for young, healthy children. When asked to provide evidence for this unilateral, behind-closed-doors decision, he couldn’t.

This week, the AAP released its own recommendations. Consistent with the CDC’s findings — and in direct contrast to Kennedy’s edict — the AAP stated, “Infants and children 6 to 23 months of age are at high risk for severe COVID-19… All infants and children in this age group [should] receive the 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine… Those who are previously unvaccinated should receive an initial series.”

Hours after the AAP released its statement, Kennedy fired back, posting on X that the AAP was engaging in a “pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors.” 

Kennedy linked to a page showing that the AAP’s Friends of Children Fund, a charity that focuses on adolescent mental health and suicide prevention, had received donations from several vaccine makers. Kennedy also claimed that the medical journal that published the AAP’s recommendations, Pediatrics, was part of this same “pay-to-play scheme.” 

Kennedy’s actions were a tiresome rerun of his many accusations over the past 20 years. Whenever scientists, doctors, public health officials, academic institutions, scientific journals, or medical or professional societies claim that a vaccine is safe, effective, or valuable, he says that they are all in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. No one is to be trusted, except him.

Kennedy’s conflict-of-interest gambit is a misdirection game. If he can get the press and the public to talk about conflicts-of-interest, he can distract from his decision — not supported by the evidence — to recommend against COVID-19 vaccines for children.

Then Kennedy made a veiled threat, posting on X that the “AAP should be candid with doctors and hospitals that recommendations that diverge from the CDC’s official list are not shielded from liability under the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act.” 

Defy me, argued Kennedy, and I will make sure that doctors and hospitals that recommend COVID-19 vaccines for young children could be sued. It was an empty threat. Doctors and hospitals are protected from liability related to COVID-19 vaccines by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP). Kennedy’s threat was yet another mean-spirited attempt at misdirection.

Pediatricians, parents, and public health officials are confused by these conflicting recommendations. Epidemiological evidence says one thing, Kennedy another. This confusion will likely result in some young children failing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. It is also likely that some of these children will be admitted to the hospital, or intensive care unit, or die as a result. And when that happens, to understand why, we won’t have to look any further than the man who for the past 20 years has been an anti-vaccine propagandist, science denialist, and conspiracy theorist.

W.H. Auden, a British-American poet, wrote:

The mass and majesty of this world, all
   That carries weight and always weighs the same,
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
   And could not hope for help and no help came…

How many children will have to suffer needlessly at the hands of RFK Jr. before someone, anyone, steps up to save them?

Adapted, with permission, from Paul Offit’s substack Beyond the Noise.

Paul Offit, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, and author of Tell Me When It’s Over.