Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells Newsmax Health that money is the
reason Congress is delaying hearings on accusations that the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hid a link between
the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism."The
pharmaceutical industry is a trillion dollar industry," Kennedy
said in an exclusive interview. "There are other trillion dollar
industries, but not one that spends as much on Congress as it
does.
"The pharmaceutical industry spends twice what the next biggest
industry spends, which is oil and gas. They spend four times
what defense and aeronautics spend.
"That kind of money — the money they spend in lobbying — buys a
lot of influence," he says. "It's why congress people are scared
to go against them. There's just a lot of career fear."
Kennedy, 61, the third of 11 children born to Robert and Ethel
Kennedy, is a radio show host and environmentalist. He has long
been a critic of childhood vaccination formulations containing
mercury.
Republican Florida Rep. Bill Posey has called on his colleagues
to investigate charges that the CDC covered up data that showing
a strong link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
Rep. Posey referred to last summer's admission by Dr. William
Thompson, a senior epidemiologist at the CDC, that he helped the
CDC hide data that showed giving a child the vaccine before the
age of 36 months increased the risk of autism by 69 percent, and
giving it to an African-American child increased the risk of
autism by 240 percent. So far, Congress has refused to hold
hearings.
"The CDC scheduled meetings to try to destroy the documents that
demonstrated children were getting autism from the vaccine by
literally dumping them in a trashcan," Kennedy charged."Congress
only seems to act when a congress person has been affected
directly by vaccine injury."
He points to two congressmen in addition to Posey who have
spoken out about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism:
former Reps. Dan Burton and Dave Weldon.
As chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, Burton
linked autism with vaccines, and in a 2002 letter to the
Department of Health and Human Services, he asked the director
of the FDA to recall all vaccines containing the mercury
compound thimerosal. "Every day that mercury-containing vaccines
remain on the market is another day HHS is putting 8,000
children at risk," Burton said.
Kennedy said the battle was personal for Rep. Burton."Burton had
three years of hearings back in 2002 that were brilliant and
were absolutely devastating," Kennedy said. "His grandson got
regressive autism from those vaccines."
In 2012, Burton once again called for congressional hearings
into the causes of autism, including vaccines, saying the
government's response to the increase in autism was inadequate.
Rep. Weldon was a pediatrician. "He saw autism in his practice
that was a result of the vaccines," Kennedy said. "He was a
great activist."
While Kennedy says he isn't anti-vaccine, he believes it's up to
parents to protect their children from the possible consequences
of being vaccinated with shots containing mercury.
"Be very careful about any vaccine that has mercury in it," he
said. "If children get a flu vaccine, or tetanus, or meningitis
vaccine, make sure they get non-thimerosal, single-dose vials.”