In his May 2 piece titled RFK Jr. Was Always a Crackpot, He Just Switched Political Tribes, The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis resorts to smearing Democratic presidential candidate RFK, Jr., by alluding to his stance on vaccines. Lewis claims that RFK, Jr., “…promoted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.”

Kennedy has publicly stated numerous times that he is not anti-vaccine. He substantiates this claim by pointing out that he himself has received all of his required vaccines, as have all of his children.

Rather than being anti-vaccine, Kennedy says he is for safe vaccines. As Kennedy explains it, he wants vaccines to be held to the same rigorous safety standards as pharmaceutical drugs.

Lewis goes on to state that Kennedy has promoted the false belief that “…vaccines cause autism”. Yet Lewis doesn’t bother to present, and then refute, any of the scientific data Kennedy has cited that led him to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism.

Lewis, of course, isn’t unusual in his approach to smearing Kennedy — he is simply copying the arguments that other mainstream news outlets have already made since Kennedy announced his candidacy. However, with Kennedy polling at 20% out of the gates, such smearing techniques appear to be having little effect on the public. If the mainstream media really wishes to discredit Kennedy over his stance on vaccines, they will have to directly, and systematically, take on the massive volume of scientific and factual evidence he has compiled to inform his views on vaccines. But the mainstream media likely will not do this, and the reason is obvious. So smearing it will have to be!