Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said on Monday that her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ideas about vaccination were “dangerous” and out of the mainstream.
“I don’t think that most Americans share them,” she said in response to a question at the National Press Club in Canberra, the Australian capital, just days after President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would nominate Mr. Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” she added.
Mr. Kennedy has denied that he is against vaccination, styling himself as a vaccine safety activist who questions corporate influence on science. His critics say he has promoted conspiratorial ideas about a public health intervention widely viewed as one of the most important advances in modern medicine.
Mr. Kennedy has embraced the debunked theory that vaccines can cause autism and has questioned Covid-19 vaccines. He has also been linked to a measles outbreak in Samoa.
Mr. Kennedy visited a vaccine skeptic there in 2019, elevating anti-vaccination sentiment after the death of two infants who had received measles shots. A dip in vaccination rates led to a deadly outbreak in the country. Mr. Kennedy has denied discouraging vaccination in Samoa.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday morning.
The public rebuke by Ms. Kennedy was the latest in a series of denunciations of Mr. Kennedy by members of his family. His sister Kerry said last year that “I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues.”
The ambassador’s comments about her cousin were notable, though, because of their timing and her position: Ms. Kennedy was speaking during the transition to Mr. Trump’s second term and in her role representing the U.S. government, even as she acknowledged her familial connection to Mr. Kennedy.
“I grew up with him, so I’ve known all this for a long time,” Ms. Kennedy said. “Others are just getting to know him.”
Ms. Kennedy said her family was “united in terms of our support for the public health sector and infrastructure” and had “the greatest admiration for the medical profession.”
She added, “And Bobby Kennedy has got a different set of views.”
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