When 12-year-old Braden Fahey collapsed at soccer practice and died, it was just the beginning of his parents’ nightmare.
A few months later, deeply grieving, Gina and Padrig Fahey received news that shocked them deeply: a favorite photo of their beloved son taped to the cover of an e-book falsely claiming that COVID-19 vaccines have led to a backlog of illnesses. Sudden deaths among healthy young people.
The book, titled “Cause Unknown,” was co-published through an anti-vaccine organization led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , nephew of President John F. Kennedy, recently running for president. Kennedy wrote the foreword and promoted the book, tweeting that it points to knowledge that says “COVID shootings are a crime against humanity. “
The Faheys didn’t understand how Braden’s face appeared on the cover of the book, or why he called it.
Braden never won the vaccine. His death in August 2022 was due to a malformation of a blood vessel in his brain. No one ever touched them to ask for their son’s death or permission to use the photo. No one asked to verify the date of his death, which the e-book passed on over the course of a year. When the Faheys and the citizens of their California city tried to contact the publisher and remove Braden and his photo from the e-book, no one responded.
“We got as close as we could,” Gina Fahey told The Associated Press in an emotional interview. “We waited months and months for an answer, and nothing. “
How could a mere member of one of the most influential political dynasties in U. S. history be involved in such a failed and irresponsible project, the Faheys wondered.
Braden’s story is just one example of how Kennedy, son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy used his well-known call to spread misinformation about vaccines and other topics at a time when the spread of conspiracy theories has become a difficult way to grow. a constituency. An AP review of his work and its effect found that Kennedy gained money, fame, and political influence while letting other people like the Faheys suffer.
Now, Kennedy’s resolve to abandon his Democratic bid for president and run as an independent puts him back in the spotlight in an election that lately is headed for a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. Both parties are concerned that it could seem so like a spoiler that it could ruin the results of the campaign in unforeseen ways. And at a time when Republicans running for 2024 are also sowing doubt about the efficacy of vaccines, he threatens to publicize more incorrect and destructive information that has already claimed lives.
One mother told the AP how she took care of her son late because she believed Kennedy’s lies about vaccines. One former elected leader described being harassed by Kennedy supporters. Doctors and nurses have told how their work has harmed others in the U. S. and abroad.
Kennedy’s campaign did not respond to several emails commenting on this article, but after the AP reached out to Kennedy and others involved in the book last week, the president of Skyhorse Publishing, which co-edited it, texted the Faheys, offering them a chat. Gina Fahey told the AP she felt he only contacted her after it became apparent that the situation could damage her reputation.
“There’s still this lack of compassion that’s been around since the beginning,” he said, adding that he is now hesitant to interact with them because he doesn’t accept that their intentions are true. “It’s only now that they’re communicating with us. a few days before they knew this story was going to be published. “
Braden’s parents read vicious comments from others who falsely blamed vaccines for their son’s death. They say seeing Braden’s reminiscence distorted through Kennedy and others is deeply painful.
“When you feel like you can get some fresh air, try again,” Gina Fahey said.
“He’s very manipulative. And you know, he’s making money off of our tragedies,” she said, adding, “How can you need someone to run our country and run like that?”
Many years before anti-vaccine activists exploited the pandemic to bring their ideas to the American public, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, was one of the most influential propagators of fear and distrust of vaccines. He has long defended the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. He said vaccines had caused a “holocaust” and traveled the world spreading incorrect information about the pandemic.
In recent years, Kennedy has used his appeal and rhetorical skills to turn his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense, or CHD, into an influential force spreading false and misleading information. An AP investigation in the past revealed how Kennedy took advantage of the pandemic to turn CHD into a multibillion-dollar disinformation engine.
One of the tactics Kennedy and CHD made money through e-book sales. Skyhorse, Kennedy’s former publisher, partnered with CHD to create a series of e-books that published titles such as “Vax-Unvax,” “Profiles of the Vaccine Wounded” and Braden Fahey’s e-book, “Cause Unknown. “
Written by former BlackRock executive Edward Dowd, this book is based on the false premise that sudden deaths of healthy young people are on the rise. Experts say those rare medical emergencies aren’t new and aren’t getting more frequent.
“We just don’t see anything that recommends that,” said Dr. Matthew Martinez of the Atlantic Health System at Morristown Medical Center, who studies cardiac events in professional athletes.
The AP found that dozens of other people included in the book died from known reasons unrelated to vaccines, including suicide, drunken asphyxiation, an overdose and an allergic reaction.
The AP asked Tony Lyons, campaign chairman for Kennedy, CHD, Dowd and Skyhorse, several questions about the book, adding why they chose to feature Braden, why they didn’t contact his family first and what steps they took to prevent it. control.
The only user who responded is Lyons, who also co-chairs the 2024 Kennedy Super PAC American Values.
In his emails, Lyons did not explain why Braden was selected in particular for the cover, but defended his inclusion by saying that news reports and his obituary did not mention the cause of his death.
Hundreds of deaths are cited in the e-book, though Lyons said he attributed only nine to the vaccine. Lyons said Braden’s deaths and others were never explicitly attributed to the vaccine, and that the e-book explores many conceivable reasons for the deaths that have made headlines. since 2021.
Still, the e-book refers to his “thesis” that the mass management of COVID-19 vaccines has led to an increase in the number of deaths. Braden’s parents said his appearance in the context of the e-book implied that he died from the vaccine, putting his death in a false light.
Lyons said he was not aware of the Faheys’ efforts to contact his company and asked the AP to share his contact information with them. He said he would make some corrections in future editions, adding the date of Braden’s death, but said they were contemplating whether to do so. Take it off the eBook or cover.
Lyons told the AP that Children’s Health Defense has a publishing deal with Skyhorse, though he wouldn’t say how much money CHD made from that deal.
Kennedy also has a consulting contract with Skyhorse that has paid him $125,000 since August 2022 for textbooks for the company, according to a monetary disclosure he filed. Lyons said the deal has so far resulted in 27 books in other genres, adding children’s books, crime novels and cookbooks, but declined to name them.
Lyons also praised Kennedy’s record in environmental paintings, such as protecting the Hudson River in New York City, as well as other paintings he has made to confront tough corporate interests and what Kennedy sees as government corruption. These are also issues that Kennedy focused on. his presidential campaign.
The platform Kennedy has built for himself is having an impact. In a 2021 study of verified Twitter accounts, researchers Francesco Pierri, Matthew DeVerna, and others at Indiana University’s Social Media Observatory found that Kennedy’s private Twitter account is the most sensible “superspreader” of vaccine misinformation on Twitter, guilty of 13% of all actions. of incorrect information, which is more than 3 times the maximum number of accounts retweeted at the time.
Kennedy’s messages have won over a significant portion of the public, some of whom attend his campaigns proudly dressed in pins with crossed out syringes or repeating Kennedy’s speeches about vaccine ingredients.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has filed a lawsuit against several news organizations, the Associated Press added, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking steps to identify misinformation, adding about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy said goodbye to the organization’s absence when he announced his candidacy for president, yet he is listed as one of its lawyers at the ITU.
Many others risked their lives and the lives of their families for the perspectives expressed by Kennedy and other vaccine opponents.
The AP spoke with mothers who were once known as anti-vaxxers and were among Kennedy’s staunchest supporters.
“I consider him heroic, because he would say things publicly that others were too afraid to say,” Lydia Greene said.
Greene, who lives in the Canadian province of Alberta, refused all vaccinations for her son after endorsing claims by Kennedy and other anti-vaccine “gurus” that vaccines cause autism. When her son began showing symptoms of autism, Greene flatly ignored him. .
“I couldn’t even see his autism because in the anti-vaccine movement, autism is the worst end result that can happen to a child. And when they talk about their vaccinated autistic children, it’s with a tone of resentment and how to communicate how their lives are ruined, their marriage is ruined, and it’s just that child that’s being damaged,” Greene said. “And that’s why, when my son was different, I couldn’t see that kind of thing in him. “
He said he didn’t acknowledge his condition until he “came out of the rabbit hole of the anti-vaxxers. “
“I learned that I had lost a lot of valuable time while he was in occupational treatment, speech treatment and evidence-based autism treatment,” Greene said.
Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense produces articles, newsletters, books, podcasts, and even TV shows about its own coronary heart disease. TV. Greene said those articles validate the fears of concerned parents, no matter how irrational, while also making them feel like someone tough is listening.
Today, Greene believes she was exploited.
“That’s what CHD does,” Greene said. And they hack that.
Because of their national prominence, Kennedy’s paintings have repercussions beyond the top committed anti-vaccine activists.
Medical professionals told the AP that incorrect information about vaccines spread through Kennedy and other influencers is causing the patients they care for to receive life-saving vaccines.
Sharon Goldfarb is a family nurse at Berkeley who spent the worst of the pandemic caring for people on the margins of society: the homeless; others living in the country illegally; other people with severe intellectual fitness needs. He has witnessed the consequences of misinformation and vaccine refusal.
“It’s concerning because he has a very large last name,” Goldfarb said. “When you’re a trusted public figure and you have a trustworthy last name, you have to answer to a higher authority. . . I just don’t get it.
Dr. Todd Wolynn, a Pittsburgh pediatrician who works to explain vaccine facts on social media, said that despite Kennedy’s lack of clinical experience, he has enormous influence over his followers.
“It uses a very giant platform to magnify incorrect information that leads other people to make a resolution that is not based on evidence,” Wolynn said. “And as a result, they endanger their own lives, the lives of their children, the lives of their families, at risk. “
Although Kennedy reacted to this story, he has long said that he is against vaccines and just needs vaccines to be rigorously tested. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains that vaccines go through extensive testing before they are legal or approved in the U. S. It is important to ensure that the U. S. Department of Health and Human Rights (US) and that its protection be monitored after it is presented to the public.
COVID-19 vaccines were first developed at Trump’s direction, as a component of the Operation Warp Speed program. But what his Republican-led leadership saw at the time as a source of pride has since become a cause for complaint in Republican circles. joining among Republican presidential hopefuls who have expressed skepticism about vaccines.
Republican candidate and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said in a podcast interview in July that if he had had the facts, he would have gotten vaccinated against COVID-19. Republican nominee Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has violated CDC rules to advise Floridians under the age of 65 to get the latest COVID-19 booster shot.
That kind of rhetoric, along with the conspiracy ideals Kennedy shared on other issues, such as 5G, “can have an effect on the proper functioning of societies,” said Daniel Jolley, a professor of social psychology at the University of Nottingham, who has published several papers on conspiracy reflection and its effects.
While skepticism is important, the correct assessment of the evidence is essential, Jolley said. Anyone who espouses conspiracy theories while running for president gives the impression that such theories are normal.
“It’s that kind of rhetoric that I think is harmful,” Jolley said. “You worry when you think about the next pandemic, the next occasion, or the next challenge that will come our way. “
Jolley wonders: Will other people next time pay attention to doctors or experts?
Kennedy’s role in legitimizing anti-vaccine activism is not limited to the United States. Perhaps the most well-known example occurred in 2019 in Samoa, a Pacific island country.
That year, dozens of children died of measles. Many factors have led to this wave of deaths, including medical errors and poor decisions by government authorities. But other people concerned about the backlash who spoke to the AP said Kennedy and the anti-vaccine activists he supported had made the situation worse.
In June 2019, Kennedy and his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, traveled to Samoa, something Kennedy later wrote about and which was arranged through Edwin Tamasese, a local anti-vaxxer influencer from Samoa.
Vaccination rates plummeted after two young men died in 2018 from a measles vaccine that a nurse had incorrectly combined with a muscle relaxant. The government suspended the vaccination program for months. When Kennedy arrived, fitness officials were looking to get back to normal.
He treated him as a prominent guest, rode in a government vehicle, met with the prime minister and, according to Kennedy, many fitness officials and the fitness minister.
She also met with anti-vaccine activists, including Tamasese and well-known influencer Taylor Winterstein, who posted a photo of herself and Kennedy on her Instagram.
“These past few days have been profoundly monumental for me, my family, and for this movement so far,” he wrote, adding the hashtags #investigatebeforeyouvaccinate.
A few months later, a measles outbreak broke out in Samoa, killing 83 people, mostly infants and children, out of a population of approximately 200,000.
Public Fitness said at the time that incorrect anti-vaccine information had left the country vulnerable.
The crisis of low vaccination rates and skepticism has created an environment “of its own for people like RFK to come in and help promote those views,” said Helen Petousis-Harris, a New Zealand vaccinologist who has worked on efforts to restore confidence in the measles vaccine in Samoa.
Petousis-Harris recalled that local and regional anti-vaccine activists have been inspired by Kennedy, who, according to her, “is at the most sensitive point in the food chain as a source of misinformation. “
“They have amplified concern and mistrust, which has led to an amplification of the epidemic and an increase in the number of child deaths. The children came to care too late,” she said.
Kennedy’s crusade did not respond to emailed comments about Samoa, even though it claims on its crusade online page that it played no role in the outbreak. He also said in an interview for an upcoming documentary, “Shot in the Arm,” that he takes no duty for the outcome.
“I have nothing to do with other people not getting vaccinated in Samoa. I’ve never told them not to get vaccinated. I haven’t been there, you know, for some reason.
But other people who worked on Samoa’s reaction to measles told the AP that the credibility he gave to anti-vaccine forces when he met with them had an impact.
Moelagi Leilani Jackson, a Samoan nurse who worked on the vaccination crusade to curb the scourge of measles, recalled that after Kennedy’s visit, anti-vaccine influencers “got louder. “
“I feel like they had Kennedy’s support. But I also think Kennedy. . . Well, he came in and left,” he recalled. And other people picked up the pieces. “
A few weeks after his trip to Samoa, Kennedy appeared in Sacramento, where lawmakers were debating a bill to make it harder to obtain an exemption for vaccines. The bill was sponsored by Democratic Senator Richard Pan, a pediatrician.
As a crowd gathered on the outskirts of the capital, Kennedy rose to speak. Two giant posters displayed the symbol of Pan, with the word “LIAR” etched on his face with blood-red paint. Pan told the AP he felt the staging. It was intended to incite the crowd that opposed him.
“So it’s mobilizing for other people to attack me, essentially personally,” said Pan, who is no longer in office.
A few months later, an anti-vaccine extremist attacked Pan and livestreamed it on Facebook. An threw blood on Pan and the lawmakers.
Kennedy invoked the Holocaust when talking about vaccines and public fitness mandates, comparisons that Pan said amounted to an “indirect call to violence” opposed to fitness advocates.
“Who creates an environment where they think it’s appropriate to physically attack a legislator?It’s other people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ,” Pan says.
Pan said it was one of many times Kennedy had confronted others who opposed public fitness advocates. Kennedy also wrote a best-selling book attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert and former government scientist, who received death threats.
The attacks drew complaints from Kennedy’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, who cited Kennedy’s circle of political violence (her father and uncle were killed) when she told the AP in 2021, “Attacking doctors and scientists is irresponsible because so many have won. “Risks of death. . . This can discourage others from pursuing these professions. Our family circle knows that the risk of death must be taken seriously.
Kerry Kennedy and three other brothers issued a statement on Oct. 9 denouncing Kennedy’s independent candidacy, calling it “dangerous” and “dangerous” for the country.
Pan said Kennedy’s rhetoric, which demonizes scientists and medical professionals, is part of a strategy to intimidate and silence them.
“When you call something a holocaust, it’s incitement to violence,” Pan said.
“The real result of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is that we have dead children and other people who are doing everything they can in intelligent religion to look at others, adding children, who are fundamentally threatened and even assaulted because of their rhetoric. and their lies,” said Pan, who is now running for mayor of Sacramento, a nonpartisan position. “It’s hurting America. “
Associated Press video reporter Terry Chea contributed to this report.
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