RFK Jr.'s MAHA Allies Call to Eliminate All Childhood Vaccine Recommendations

Leaders of the MAHA Institute, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-allied think tank pushing Make America Health Again movement policies, stated their position on vaccines unequivocally on Monday: “The childhood vaccination schedule needs to be eliminated,” the policy group’s president, Mark Gorton, said.

“All vaccines need to be removed from the market until they can be proven to be safe and effective,” Gorton told an audience of supporters gathered in the Willard Hotel’s Crystal Room for a panel discussion on the “Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury.”

Kennedy was not physically present at the MAHA Institute event, but his name and likeness were everywhere: on stickers affixed to the back of a laptop, on a white-and-green sweatshirt emblazoned with the MAHA slogan and in the remarks from speakers like Del Bigtree, Kennedy’s former communications manager.

“Vaccines are causing autism,” Bigtree said to the room, speaking alongside slides arguing against the measles vaccine, claiming an infection reduces the risk of cancer — a claim experts say is not backed by science. The measles vaccine is safe and effective; measles killed 400 to 500 Americans a year before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly 1,300 cases of measles have been reported so far in 2026. While autism rates have risen in recent decades due to a mix of factors, including environmental exposures and improvements in diagnostic criteria, scientific studies have not found any link between vaccinations and autism.

The event, just a block from the White House, comes at an interesting time for the MAHA movement in Washington. It is clear that the institute, and the movement it is part of, have the administration’s ear; attendees of past events have included senior HHS adviser Calley Means and Food and Drug Administration official Sara Brenner.

But MAHA hasn’t been very happy with the Trump administration’s lack of action in recent months on issues it cares deeply about, like reducing pesticide use. And the Trump administration is reportedly wary that its vaccine policies are hurting them politically: A memo written by President Donald Trump’s main pollster called vaccine skepticism “politically risky” and said there could be “electoral downsides” for politicians who support eliminating vaccine recommendations.

Gorton’s recommendation would be a huge escalation in efforts to curtail access to vaccines. The CDC rolled back the childhood vaccine schedule in January, but left all vaccines currently approved available through “shared clinical decision making” with a medical provider.

The threat of a voter backlash to that decision and to other cuts to the vaccine schedule made by a CDC committee last fall has seemingly rattled the Trump administration. Several high-ranking officials with histories of criticizing vaccines at the CDC and the FDA have left federal service in recent weeks, including Jim O’Neill, who served as acting CDC director and signed off on the January changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, and Vinay Prasad, the FDA official who reportedly blocked an mRNA vaccine from being reviewed by the agency.

The MAHA Institute, on the other hand, showed no concern over the potential political pitfalls of pushing its anti-vaccine agenda.

Gorton displayed slides with titles like “The Polio Fraud” and “The flu shot has given 1,900,000 Americans Alzheimer’s,” and, simply, “VACCINES ARE THE GREATEST SCAM IN MEDICAL HISTORY.”

At another moment, Gorton claimed that HHS had commissioned more than 100 studies into vaccine injuries. When asked by NOTUS where he got that number, he said Kennedy had previously stated his desire to further study vaccines.

“I don’t know much more than they’re commissioning a bunch of studies,” Gorton told NOTUS.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it was conducting new studies on vaccine injuries.

At times, the event seemed like a PR launch for the slogan “Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury,” which speakers shortened to MEVI.

“We talk about the epidemic of chronic disease, but the vagueness of that term allows people to see right through the problem without seeing it,” Gorton explained. But “massive epidemic of vaccine injury” is a “mouthful.”

“Hence, MEVI,” Gorton said.