Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., criticized Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) for accusing him of spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines. Shapiro’s comments came as the governor announced on Tuesday that two people in Pennsylvania died from measles. Both were unvaccinated, Shapiro said. He accused Kennedy and the Trump administration of “scaring people” into not believing doctors and medical information about vaccines. Kennedy objected to the criticism and said that Shapiro was gaslighting the public. Kennedy posted on X the details of the phone conversation he said he had with Shapiro.
“During our phone conversation, Governor Shapiro also accused me of promoting vaccine misinformation,” Kennedy said in the post. “When I asked him for an example, he was unable to provide one, but this did not deter him from publicly repeating that accusation during his press event. As I told him, HHS does not tolerate misinformation by any employee. I offered to point to hundreds of instances of vaccine misinformation by the Biden administration about which I had never heard him complain.”
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During a media briefing on Tuesday to announce the deaths, Shapiro said he spoke with Kennedy, who called him to offer resources to help with the measles outbreak. The Pennsylvania governor said he rejected Kennedy’s offer and added that he criticized him for his anti-vaccine rhetoric.
“I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “There’s real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids.”
“Sharing conspiracy theories and misinformation does not help the causes of public health, and it leaves people less healthy and less safe,” Shapiro continued. “And it leaves parents in a position where it’s harder for us to do our jobs to protect our children.”
Kennedy objected to Shapiro’s categorization. He also mentioned that he spoke with Shapiro about concerns some people had regarding the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, more commonly known as MMR. It is a two-shot series to protect people against measles, mumps, and rubella, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“At his press conference today, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro accused me of promoting conspiracy theories because I told him, during an earlier telephone conversation, that some Americans had religious objections to the MMR vaccine because it contained fetal tissue. ‘There is no fetal tissue in the MMR,’ he told me,” Kennedy said.
He then shared a video deposition of Dr. Stanley Plotkin, who developed the rubella vaccine. In the video, Plotkin answers in the affirmative when asked if the MMR vaccine contained fetal tissue.
“During Dr. Plotkin’s deposition, Attorney Aaron Siri asked: ‘Isn’t it true that MMR II contains approximately 150 nanograms cells substrate double-strand DNA and single-strand DNA per dose, purposefully fragmented to approximately 215 base pairs in length?’” Kennedy’s post read. “Dr. Plotkin answered: ‘Yeah, that’s probably correct, yes.’”
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He also chided Shapiro for saying that Kennedy was responsible for the decrease in Pennsylvania’s vaccination rates. Kennedy disputed Shapiro’s claims and said that he challenged Shapiro on the information and that the Pennsylvania governor backtracked on his assertions and admitted that “most of the decline occurred during the Biden administration.”
“Governor Shapiro also faulted me for the decline in Pennsylvania vaccination rates from 97% – 93.2%,” Kennedy said in his post. “When I pushed back on this assertion, he acknowledged that most of the decline occurred during the Biden administration. It’s unfortunately true that the government lockdowns, deceptions, manipulation, and overreach during Covid severely damaged public faith in the vaccine program.”
“Governor Shapiro’s press conference was an example of the same species of gaslighting,” Kennedy added.
