By Laurel Rosenhall
The California Legislature’s debate over whether to make childhood vaccines mandatory has attracted another high-profile personality: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late U.S. senator and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.
In a call Monday to The Sacramento Bee, Kennedy Jr. – a longtime skeptic of the safety of some vaccine ingredients – said he’s hoping to organize a Sacramento screening of a film that he wants legislators to see before they vote on Senate Bill 277. The measure, by Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, would eliminate the ability of parents to opt out of having their children vaccinated based on their personal beliefs. It has touched off an impassioned debate among California parents pitting arguments of personal freedom against public health…
Kennedy Jr. calls himself “pro-vaccine” and said he has vaccinated all six of his children. Yet he has become a loud voice in the movement that questions the safety of vaccines. He promotes the idea that vaccines can cause autism – an idea not supported by mainstream science – and says pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines have too much political clout…