Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, previously suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic may have been deliberately orchestrated.
In August 2020, during a press conference in Germany, Kennedy, a known anti-vaccine advocate, stated, “A lot of it feels very planned to me,” when discussing the pandemic that resulted in over 1.2 million deaths in the U.S.
Kennedy, at the time, was promoting the European chapter of his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense. He remarked that many people believed the pandemic to be part of a “sinister scheme” and described the situation as potentially being “planned from the outset.” However, he admitted that he lacked sufficient evidence to confirm such claims, stating, “I can’t tell you the answer to that.”
Kennedy also warned of a growing “pharmaceutical-driven, biosecurity agenda” that he claimed could enslave humanity, drawing controversial comparisons between pandemic efforts and Nazi-era atrocities. His rhetoric sparked strong criticism, with some accusing him of spreading unfounded conspiracy theories.
Kennedy’s views on the pandemic have been longstanding. A vocal critic of vaccine mandates, he has suggested that the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 was part of a deliberate plan to control the population. He also accused prominent figures such as Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci of profiting from the crisis.
These statements align with conspiracy theories that gained traction in 2020, particularly after the release of the film Plandemic, which falsely claimed that the pandemic was engineered by elites like Gates to manipulate the global health system and profit from vaccines. Despite these claims being widely debunked, Kennedy continued to amplify his accusations, labeling the COVID-19 vaccine as the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Pediatrician Paul Offit, who serves on the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, dismissed Kennedy’s claims as baseless, stating that Kennedy’s conspiracy theories are unsupported by evidence.
Kennedy’s controversial remarks have added to concerns about his qualifications to lead the Health and Human Services Department, given his history of promoting unfounded health conspiracies.