On September 17, 2026, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered the keynote at the Washington conference of Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization he chaired from 2015 to 2023.
“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” he told the audience. He urged patience on the grounds that lasting change requires following the law: “But as I said, you have friends in the White House, and we are doing this one day at a time.” He added, “I spent 40 years in these battles. I intend to stay in this fight as long as I am able.”
He addressed the country's measles outbreak once, and did so by redirecting from it. “In our country we care about rare illnesses and deaths. We care about every child who dies from measles. They get headlines,” he said. “I'd ask you to care about children who are dying or suffering or being injured by vaccine injuries.” Pennsylvania has reported four measles-associated deaths and 731 cases as of September 16, and his department has declined to publish those deaths (see A Coroner Ruled One Pennsylvania Baby Died of Measles, and the CDC Deleted Both Deaths From Its Count).
In the same speech, after promising the crowd science transparency, he said: “We're also looking at chemtrails and the impact of emissions from aircraft, and those potential impacts on health.” Mediaite reported the line drew major applause. Chemtrails are a long-debunked conspiracy theory; what aircraft leave behind are contrails, ice crystals that form when hot engine exhaust meets cold air. Kennedy's own phrasing was “we're also looking at,” which is softer than CNN's description of him announcing an official investigation.
The program alongside him indicates the company the department's leadership is keeping. Andrew Wakefield, whose medical license was revoked after he was found to have fabricated research linking vaccines to autism, spoke and said, “I could not have imagined two years ago that Bobby [Kennedy] would be in the White House and that President Trump would be saying 'divide up the MMR into three different'.” Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul also appeared; Johnson, told the event was being called the largest anti-vaccine conference in the world, called that “a red badge of courage.”
Rep. Thomas Massie told the conference that after the 2024 election he asked Trump for the agriculture job, and that Trump replied, “Are you friends with Bobby? Is he too much for HHS? Don't you think we need some vaccines?” Massie said Kennedy was nominated to HHS the next day. His advice to the activists: “get the clowns who are here to do what you want. Get them to get in the clown car you want. And use pressure. Treat them like cattle.”
Update (September 19, 2026): CNN's written account adds what Kennedy said about Trump and about access. “President Trump will not allow the government to treat parents who question vaccine orthodoxies as lepers,” he said, and, “We have not taken vaccines away from anyone. We have preserved access, but we have started asking the questions that you and millions of American parents have been asking for years.” CNN also reports he described the department as funding studies into the health harms of electromagnetic fields as well as chemtrails, “a line that drew applause.”
CNN puts the outbreak against which he spoke at more than 3,200 measles cases in the United States this year, in a disease declared eliminated here in 2000, with four measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania including two infants and an 18-year-old.
Correction: an earlier version of this entry said the keynote ran roughly an hour and a half. That detail is not supported by any source cited here and has been removed.