RFK Jr. Born: Environmental Lawyer Turned Provocateur

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was born on January 17, 1954, in Washington, D.C., the third of eleven children of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. His father was assassinated in 1968, when Bobby Jr. was fourteen. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, had been murdered five years earlier. He grew up in a family defined by public service, political ambition, and violent loss. He attended Harvard and the University of Virginia School of Law. After struggling with heroin addiction in his twenties, he built a career as an environmental attorney. He served as chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, an organization that sued corporate polluters for contaminating the Hudson River and its tributaries. His legal work forced General Electric to fund a massive PCB cleanup and held dozens of companies accountable for violations of the Clean Water Act. He taught environmental law at Pace University for decades. His reputation shifted dramatically beginning in the mid-2000s when he published articles questioning the safety of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines. He argued that the scientific establishment was covering up a link between vaccines and autism, a claim that the medical community and major studies have consistently rejected. His 2005 article in Rolling Stone, "Deadly Immunity," was later retracted by the magazine. His vaccine skepticism intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he became one of the most prominent critics of mRNA vaccines and pandemic public health measures. He founded the nonprofit Children's Health Defense, which became a major platform for anti-vaccine advocacy. His positions fractured his progressive reputation and alienated much of the Kennedy family, several of whom publicly disagreed with his views. He ran for president as an independent in 2024, drawing support from voters skeptical of both major parties before dropping out and endorsing Donald Trump. The trajectory from environmental crusader to anti-vaccine figurehead represents one of the most dramatic ideological realignments in American public life.