Shannon Bond
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🎙️NPR correspondent covering how technology, power, politics & influence intersect. send tips on Signal to shannonbond.01 www.npr.org/people/763523701/shanno…
🎙️NPR correspondent covering how technology, power, politics & influence intersect. send tips on Signal to shannonbond.01 www.npr.org/people/763523701/shanno…
![Why vaccine safety is often a rallying cry for anti-vaccine activists
While Kennedy is running as a Democrat, promising to "heal the divide" in American politics, many of his views are out of step with the mainstream. Americans of both parties resoundingly support childhood vaccines.
His extremely isolationist positions on immigration and foreign policy sound more like a candidate in the Republican primary. He says he would "seal the [U.S.-Mexico] border permanently" and blames the U.S. for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying Moscow acted in "good faith."
At his April campaign launch, Kennedy only obliquely nodded to his concerns about vaccines, instead referring to a "chronic disease epidemic" hurting Americans. He frequently tells interviewers that he's not anti-vaccine but instead an advocate for increased safety — while continuing to repeat disproven claims.
Vaccines go through extensive clinical trials, safety testing and monitoring in the United States. But the safety framing used by Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics makes their message "approachable," Koltai said. "They are ... degrading the trust and safety we have in institutional organizations like the CDC or the FDA and trying to manipulate data to make it seem like vaccines are less safe than they are," she said.
"Everyone wants safe vaccines. No one is saying we want less safe vaccines," she said. "They might frame this in a way that seems very appealing to everyone. But in reality, they're using the same sort of tropes and arguments and narratives that people in conspiratorial communities use."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:aroyxb6rfc6dxgb3btj3p4wi/bafkreidp4lz2szvqfopwyefwgjsv5jb7vsm3gqvhmtgdn5kkux7stpqkwu)
