In the midst of unprecedented infectious-disease and foodborne-illness outbreaks, the nation’s top health official is taking a break from campaigning for Republicans to headline a conference for Children’s Health Defense, the world’s largest anti-vaccine organization.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance will mark a homecoming for the least popular of Trump’s Cabinet members, who has kept the fringe anti-vaccine group he built at arm’s length, at least in public. Thursday’s keynote at the Grand Hyatt Washington in the District of Columbia ends the pretense and gives Kennedy and the Trump administration a stage to rally a movement that has shown signs of splintering ahead of the midterms.

Kennedy’s speech is slated for the afternoon. The conference agenda shows that he will be followed by Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced researcher whose medical licence was stripped after regulators found he had fabricated the data for a since-retracted study falsely linking the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to autism. The health secretary has partnered with Wakefield in the past to make anti-vaccine films. Kennedy calls Wakefield a friend.

In her opening remarks Thursday, CHD President Mary Holland praised “our friend Bobby” for continuing “to forge ahead, bringing things that were once inconceivable into the national dialog.”

Although confidence in childhood vaccines has waned — particularly among Republicans — most Americans do not share Kennedy’s long-stated negative and false views on vaccines. (Since taking control of the nation’s health, Kennedy has denied being anti-vaccine, insisting instead that he is “pro-safety.”) Just 19% of Americans approve of the federal response to the current measles crisis: outbreaks across 47 states this year that have sickened thousands, hospitalized hundreds and killed four so far.

Kennedy isn’t CHD’s only hero in the federal government. Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lance Gooden, R-Texas, were also scheduled to speak at the conference.

MS NOW paid $100 to view the closed conference on livestream. CHD did not respond to a request to attend and banned this reporter from events in 2025, after MS NOW reported on remarks at a CHD fundraiser made by Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hinds.

“Why don’t more Americans see it as obvious as we see it?” Johnson asked during his opening speech, outlining lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and bemoaning the public’s distaste for the anti-vaccine movement. “The answer is because they … that’s the other question. …Who are they? Who are the people that are doing everything they can to keep Americans and really the global population’s eyes closed to all the damages being done?”

Sen. Paul’s speech focused on Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom the senator has repeatedly called for to be jailed over baseless claims that the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was complicit in the pandemic.

What Kennedy will say during his allotted 30 minutes is unknown. The Department of Health and Human Services did not return emails or calls requesting more information about the contents of his speech and its rationale. Perhaps Kennedy will disavow his former anti-vaccine advocacy and urge his most passionate supporters to see the error of their false beliefs too. Considering his record, it’s unlikely.

Kennedy, alongside other anti-vaccine activists, joined what would become Children’s Health Defense in 2015. He led the group as its chair and chief legal counsel, published anti-vaccine books under its banner, produced several anti-vaccine films and traveled to vulnerable countries and communities to spread unfounded fears of vaccination.

Initially embraced or tolerated by the mainstream media, Kennedy was eventually ostracized when the falsity and harms from his anti-vaccine messaging became clear. But Covid, which CHD has suggested is a “silver lining” because of the attention it brought to the group and its cause, changed things. CHD’s annual revenue more than quadrupled, and Kennedy’s star rose online and among an increasingly extreme and distrustful right. He went on leave CHD in 2023 to run an unsuccessful bid for president, joined forces with Trump and resigned from the group at the end of 2024, a month before his confirmation hearings to become HHS secretary. His final full salary at CHD topped half a million dollars.

But he has hardly distanced himself from the anti-vaccine movement.

Kennedy has maintained ties with CHD while at HHS. He is flanked by CHD leaders at events in Washington, and he has filled the national health agencies and advisory panels with its former employees and allies. Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, is the former editor of CHD’s news website, and last year he hired Lyn Redwood, a former president and co-founder of CHD, as an “expert” with the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Office. Kennedy has also hired other architects of the anti-vaccine movement — Mark Blaxill and Stuart Burns as senior CDC advisers, and David Geier, a discredited researcher, as a senior data analyst — while pushing out expert career officials.

Kennedy spent the week before the conference campaigning for Republicans ahead of the midterms, burning turkey wraps on his YouTube cooking show and waxing about the profound spiritual effects of psychedelics on his podcast.

Kennedy has also continued to spar with Pennsylvania officials about measles deaths while an outbreak continues to spread there. More than 700 cases have been reported (which is likely an undercount), and more than 130 people have been hospitalized. Four people — two infants, a teenager and a 40-year-old woman — have died from complications associated with measles, according to the state’s health department.

CHD is unabashed about its anti-vaccine views. Its weekday morning show hosts have spent weeks downplaying measles and telling their audience daily to stay far away from vaccines, falsely blaming them for widespread injury and death. In just the past 30 days, the organization has posted dozens of false claims on X about vaccines, including that leaving babies alone with doctors will lead to forced vaccination, childhood vaccines are deadly, the Covid vaccine was “intentionally designed” to cause infertility and Dolly Parton had “killed people” because of her advocacy of the Covid vaccine.

Parts of Kennedy’s MAHA base have accused him and President Donald Trump of siding with industry over activists, most notably after an executive order boosting glyphosate production. But the anti-vaccine wing — the MAHA coalition’s largest and most organized faction — has had fewer complaints. Its activists see Kennedy as their best chance to achieve their goals, which for many at CHD is an end to vaccines and some sort of reckoning for the pharmaceutical companies, doctors and health officials who produced, provided and promoted them.

Holland, the CHD president, has consistently urged her members to stay the course with Kennedy, even when at times he seemed to distance himself from their movement.

Promoting CHD’s conference and its theme, “In order to form a more perfect future,” on a podcast last month, Holland reflected on its journey.

“It’s taken decades to get here,” she said.

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