Kennedy Stirred Vaccine Fears in [Lancaster] Pennsylvania long before measles crisis

Destroying the Kennedy family legacy

His father gave him his name as the family built a legacy of service and dedication to their country.

It takes very little to destroy it — and even his family today despises him.

However, to place a drug addict in such a position of power is one of the worst choices any president could make. And now that measles is running rampant in the United States, particularly in Pennsylvania, people are investigating his role in propagating diseases, not preventing them.

This takes us back to 2021 when he made fun of those who contracted measles, saying that when he contract it,

I “had to stay home and watch TV the whole week.” The audience erupted with applause and laughter.

“The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.”

Teddy Rosenbluth, “Kennedy Stirred Vaccine Fears in Pennsylvania Years

Before Measles Outbreak,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

He went so far as to encourage those in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the epicenter of the measles outbreak today, to avoid any immunizations.

And he says that he is not to blame for this.

The shame of it all -- destroying not just his family's legacy, but the lives of millions.

Destroying his father’s family legacy

Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. was a distinguished member of the family of Joseph and Rose Fitgerald Kennedy, a brother of President John F. Kennedy who served as a United States Senator after being named attorney general for his brother in the early 60s.

Bobby Sr eventually ran for president in 1968 as an anti-war candidate, and like his brother Jack, was assassinated by a deranged killer.

He and his wife Ethel were the parents of 11 children, many of whom experienced serious emotional issues. His namesake was one of them, and his emotional issue led to a 14-year addiction to heroin and cocaine.

This and his subsequent anti-science rantings have led his family to disown him, while saying that because he is family, they still love him.

Bobby Sr. left a great legacy, and during the first Trump administration, renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss eloquently wrote about his contribution to America,

“Fifty years after his death, RFK’s leadership qualities have never been more needed, starting with his compassion and idealism; his concern for civil rights and the dispossessed; his hatred of braggadocio, lying, and corruption; his demands for a carefully calibrated foreign policy and sane management of world crises; his sense of humor and irony; and his ability to grow.”

—Michael Beschloss (2018)

This is what is being destroyed by his son’s ranting and raving about vaccines that have saved tens of millions of lives.

Blaming the Amish for Lancaster’s travails

The younger RFK has attempted to detract any blame for the spread of measles, which scientists had identified as eliminated in 2000 according to the National Institute of Health.

The NIH scientists followed the disease and saw how few cases were reported. They said that “During 2001–2019, a total of 3873 measles cases … were reported in the United States.”

That was successful due to so many children being vaccinated. However, in just this year alone, the Centers for Disease Control have written that 2,903 confirmed cases after 2,289 in 2025. That means that more than 5,000 cases have been confirmed since Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in 2025 — and appointed Kennedy to guide the health of our country.

Kennedy has tried to deflect blame for his involvement with this as he has encouraged people to avoid vaccines,

Pressed recently on whether he might accept responsibility for the resurgence of measles in the country, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fended off any suggestion that his history of promoting vaccine skepticism might be partly to blame.

The groups facing these outbreaks were “almost all religious communities that just don’t vaccinate,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash.

“It’s hard to blame that on me,” he added.

Teddy Rosenbluth, New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

While it is true that the Amish have low vaccination rates, that is not exactly true.

Actually, it is easy to blame the anti-vaxxers for the spread of this disease, and the Times story explained why that was the case.

Kennedy’s trip to Lancaster

According to local accounts of his trip to Lancaster in 2021, almost 1,500 people in the farmlands listened to him pontificate against the use of vaccines, focusing on the Amish and other “Plain” communities who basically refuse to take the vaccines,

[W]hat Mr. Kennedy failed to acknowledge is his own role, and the role of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group he once led, in stirring distrust in those very communities. That includes in Lancaster County, Pa., which is now at the center of one of the largest measles outbreaks in the country …

Five years ago, Mr. Kennedy stood behind a wooden lectern on a farm in the county and delivered a warning to the local Amish community about the nation’s public health agencies.

“Those agencies are going to do everything in their power to make the Amish vaccinate,” he said. “Because they cannot stand the fact that you are healthy.”

New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

Medical leaders in Lancaster County had worked for years to encourage those who were leery of vaccines to overcome that. After the anti-vaxxers led the fight against the Covid vaccine, which the Commonwealth Fund estimates saved at least three million lives.

However, Kennedy and others worked hard after Covid to encourage those in Lancaster County and elsewhere to avoid any vaccines, which has very harmful,

“All it takes is somebody like that, an anti-vaxxer, to make a personal appearance to a group who already has second thoughts about immunizations,” said Dr. Alan Peterson, a family medicine physician in the county and former medical director of a program that provided free vaccines to children in Lancaster County. “Some of them just say, ‘OK, that’s all I need to know and we’re not going to get our immunizations.’”

Teddy Rosenbluth, New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

Medical experts in Lancaster condemned Kennedy’s attempts to downplay his culpability,

To those on the front lines of the Pennsylvania outbreak, Mr. Kennedy’s assessment of the current measles situation was off-base on several counts.

For one, area doctors pointed out that the virus wasn’t only spreading through insular religious groups, as he suggested on CNN, but also those in the broader community. The percentage of children vaccinated against measles has declined in the county — falling to 88 percent of kindergartners in 2025, down from 94 percent in 2019 — as it has in the United States overall.

New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

Lancaster medical people are working to change this mindset

While Kennedy is blaming the Amish and Mennonites, those in Lancaster County who are working to eliminate the problem empathize that this is not just a group of people who object to vaccines for religious reasons,

Several local leaders who work with or are part of the area’s so-called plain communities — a group that includes Amish and Mennonite people, who often refrain from using consumer technology, dress modestly and adopt other lifestyle restrictions — also pushed back against the characterization that they simply refuse vaccines.

There are a variety of attitudes toward vaccines within these communities, though it’s true that vaccination rates tend to be lower. That is because of cultural skepticism toward secular authorities and because children often do not attend public schools, which require vaccinations, said Cory Anderson, who studies those groups at Penn State University.

But historically, the groups were more willing to accept vaccines when there were strong relationships with local doctors, community outreach and acceptance of the shots by local Amish leaders, said Dr. Jeffrey Martin, a physician at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health.

New York Times, Aug. 12, 2026

The concern now is that school is starting, and since the numbers of unvaccinated children are increasing, measles can spread very rapidly this fall — and into the winter.

And Kennedy just has to continue to look in the mirror and see a guy who managed to recover from addiction based on science — but not see beyond that.