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A LOOK BACK TO SEE WHERE WE ARE HEADING #9
publication date: Nov 27, 2023
1936
RHINE OCCUPATION IS IN FIRST STAGE
Germany Has Placed Skeleton Formations in Wide Area and Barracks Are Lacking.
PEOPLE ACCLAIM THE STEP
Meanwhile, Across the Border in France, 50,000 Troops March to the Frontier.
Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
COLOGNE, Germany, March 8.— Although it had been common knowledge for some time that Ger- many’s military authorities had completed in detail all plans for the eventual reoccupation of the de- militarized zone in the Rhineland by the new German Army so that it needed only a high command to make the figures move, the main impression gained by your corre- spondent in the course of a rushed journey down the Rhine as far as Cologne yesterday afternoon and today is that the Rhinelanders have been stunned by the suddenness of the event.
At the same time it would be a fallacy to imagine that anything like a substantial part of Ger- many’s fighting forces has been set in motion toward the Rhine and ‘Germany's western frontier dis- tricts or that for the last few days the whole territory has been re- verberating with the tramping of marching columns and the rum- bling noise of an endless chain of military by rail and road.
Merely the First Stage.
Thus far Germany has merely un- dertaken a demonstrative and sym- bolic action of no exceptional mili- tary value and has only completed what will probably be the first stage of the occupation.
An announcement made by the official German news agency to the effect that by this evening nine- teen battalions of infantry and thirteen artillery sections will have occupied their new garrisons would appear roughly to correspond with what the writer has seen and heard yesterday and today in the three largest Rhine garrison cities —Cologne, Coblenz and Mainz. A doubtful factor in all estimates and calculations is the size of the artil- lery sections.
The present strength of the three largest garrisons can be estimated at about 3,000 officers and men each, while the towns of Offen- bach, Hanau, Worms, Ludwigs- hafen, Mannheim, Speyer, Karls- ruhe and Offenburg should have about one or two battalions, rough- ly 600 men to each battalion and three battalions to one regiment. Places like Frankfurt-am-Main, Saarbruecken and Trier have only one or two companies.
The total number of troops now in the former demilitarized zone should scarcely be more than 25,- 000. That is the size of an average soccer crowd in a big German city and it is spread over an area ex-
RHINE OCCUPATION IS IN FIRST STAGE
Continued From Page One.
tending from the lower Rhine and the Rhineland proper to South- western Germany and the upper Rhine Valley, adjoining the Black Forest.
Garrisons to Increase Later.
The term regiment cannot be ap- plied as a measure of the size of garrisons at all as the garrisons thus far consist of a number of small skeleton formations that have been drawn from garrisons in other parts of Germany and that will gradually be developed and organ- ized to the size of the pre-war gar- risons by enlistments from the vari- ous classes of recruits called up in the future.
The main obstacle in the way of a rapid increase for the present seems to be a lack of adequate bar- racks and other quarters as the old barracks had partly been de- molished, partly converted into flats and partly put to various other uses in recent years.
The skeleton forces represent a whole variety of military categories —infantry, engineer, army service corps, light and heavy machine- gun, flame-thrower, light and heavy artillery and radio units. Many of these have been arriving through- out the day. Squadrons of the air force have been stationed at Co- logne, Frankfurt-am-Main and Mannheim.
The troops had begun to move in the early hours of yesterday morn- ing. The first units quietly reached the neighborhood of the garrison towns on the Rhine before midday and crossed the Rhine bridges. Other garrisons were occupied later. It was the sudden appearance of air squadrons over Cologne and Duesseldorf before noon which marked the first sign for the Rhine- land populace that the historic hour had come. The inhabitants were taken completely unawares and before they had time to recover from their stupefaction the advance guards of the entering troops began to appear.
Scenes the Same Everywhere.
The scenes that followed were everywhere the same. No sooner had the news spread and been con- firmed over the radio than every house and other building in the gar- ‘rison town was covered with flags within a few minutes. :
At Cologne the people rushed out of their homes, offices and fac- tories to meet their district’s first German troops in eighteen years. The whole Cologne police force had difficulty in holding back the crowds and keeping the way open for the troops.
At 1 P. M. the soldiers came across the Hohenzollern Bridge, presenting a perfect picture of physical fitness and military eap- pearance. With smiling faces and decorated with flowers, they con- stantly exchanged greetings with the populace, rousing the people, who were packed in the Domplatz and at all the windows of adjoining hotels and buildings, to frantic en- thusiasm when they goosestepped past General von Kluge, comman- der of the Sixth German Army Corps, who took the salute.
At 12:50 the first German war flag had been hoisted on the old government building opposite the railway station of Deutz, across the Rhine from Cologne.
Public rejoicing continued through- out yesterday, ending with torch- light processions in several places. Today the towns where the main contingents of the new garrisons had arrived yesterday had a more normal appearance, there being lit- tle evidence of the military with the exception of small rear guard detachments that continued to come in.
Everywhere, however—in trains, in the streets and in the restaurants and cafés, which were crowded— the public gave expression to its satisfaction that at last its long- cherished dream had materialized.
This was not only because of its national and patriotic aspirations but because of the fact that busi- ness and commercial circles in the Rhineland towns and the western frontier provinces, which are re- garded as emergency and distressed areas, have for a long time been clamoring for the return of the garrisons, which for centuries had supplied a large section of the popu- lace with a livelihood.
The radiant and complacent faces of many people seemed to reflect pleasant recollections of their mili- tary service and of garrison life in peace-time, but in the minds of some the sudden appearance of military forces in the Rhineland undoubtedly also conjured up thoughts of all the horrors they had gone through dur- ing the World War.
The animated discussions among people of all classes on the whole did not reveal any real fear of a serious international conflict, but one question on the lips of every one was, ‘What will the others do now?"
Every one here was convinced of the righteousness of Germany's cause and the Fuehrer was show- ered with words of the highest praise and admiration for his latest "diplomatic masterpiece," although the opinion could also be heard that in making his conciliatory offers to the western powers he might to some extent have been influenced by Germany’s difficult economic and financial condition.
Thus far, however, the dramatic events of the last two days are con- sidered to have enhanced Ger- many’s national prestige. Once again they have made the whole German nation forget for a time its domestic troubles and complaints, ‘and there appears to be little doubt as to what the result of the plebes- cite March 29 will be.
The New York Times
Published: March 9, 1936 |
NAZIS WOULD JUNK THEORETIC PHYSICS
Einstein School Denounced for Trying to Impose a ‘Meas- ure of All Things.’
STUDENT STARTS DEBATE
His Attack on ‘Jewish’ Science Seized Upon as Material for Anti-Semitic Campaign.
By OTTO D. TOLISCHUS. Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES,
BERLIN, March 8.—Six German professors, all winners of the Nobel Prize for physics, are now engaged in a public controversy on the is- sue, “German Physics vs. Jewish Physics.”
This controversy which, signifi- cantly enough, is being fought out mainly in the Voelkische Beobach- ter, Chancellor Adolf Hitler's own newspaper, is part of great activity in all lines of “Kultur” stimulated by the highest authority. Nazi leaders, including Dr. Joseph Goeb- bels, Alfred Rosenberg and Bern- hard Rust, have been addressing mass meetings, such as only Nazis can organize, on the general topic of the National Socialist *Weltan- schauung’’ and “Kultur.”
Vast sums have been spent on the production of classic drama in su- perlative style. Germany's best talents, even those formerly out- lawed, such as Paul Hindemith and Wilhelm Furtwaengler, have been mobilized to restore the pre-emi- nence of German music and opera, And since nothing interests the German public more than a fight, a whole series of politically in- noctlous controversies has been launched to demonstrate that hon- est minds can still clash in the Third Reich despite regimentation.
Debates Cover Wide Range.
One such controversy deals with the merits of modern German adaptation of Shakespeare's plays, with respect to which Dr. Goebbels has reserved for himself the réle of supreme arbiter. But the most in- teresting controversy is that of the physics professors, illustrating the extent of the confusion wrought, even in eminent minds, when sci- ence is combined with politics and racial’ mysticism.
The exponents of ‘“German’’ phys- ics in this controversy are Pro- fessor Philipp Lenard, discoverer of “Lenard’s rays,” Nobel Prize winner in 1805 and now head of the Philipp Lenard Institute of Physics at Heidelberg, and Professor Jo- hannes Stark, discoverer of ‘the Stark effect,”” Nobel Prize winner in 1919 and president of the Ger- man Physics Institute and the Ger- man Research Association.
Their opponents are Professor Max Planck, Germany's most emi- nent physicist, creator of the quan- tum theory, on which modern phys- ics is based, Nobel Prize winner in 1918 and director of the Insti- tute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Berlin; Professor Max von Laue, Nobel Prize winner in 1914, and Professors Erwin Schroedinger and Werner Heisen- berg, Nobel Prize winners in 1933.
The controversy started when a student of physics, Willi Menzel, whose scientific attainments are still to be revealed to the world, but whose party orthodoxy appar-' ently is unchallenged, published a violent attack in the Beobachter: against Professor Albert Einstein and against all theoretical physi- cists as Jews or products of the Jewish spirit.
No Nazi Physics, He Admits.
He modestly admitted there was no National Socialist physics, but maintained that there was a ‘Ger- man’’ physics, which he defined as "experimental research into reality in inorganic nature caused by the joy of observing its forms of reac- tion. "Jewish" physics, as he de- fined it, "aims to make physics a purely mathematical thought con- struction, propagated in a charac- teristically Jewish manner.”
The idea of using the purely scientific contrast between theoreti- cal and experimental physics for a National Socialist campaign against the Jews, however, is not original with Willl Menzel. It ig based on | the violent diatribes in the same! direction uttered repeatedly by Pro- fessor Lenard, who maintaing that science “is conditioned by race and blood," and by Professor Stark, who denies that theoretical science has any merit whatever and de- nounces "the Jewish propaganda that makéds Einstein the biggest scientist of all times and seeks to impose Jewish views as a measure of all things."
Mr. Menzel's attack was an- swered by Professor Heisenberg, who declined to follow hia opponent into the field of political anti-Sem- itism, but confined himself purely to the defense of theoretical phys- ics, citing in particular Professor Planck as an authority, demon- | strating how through it new ex- periments had been stimulated, and above all their results had been co- ordinated and explained.
This answer, however, was fol- lowed by a statement from Profes- sor Stark, commending Mr, Men- zel, expanding the attacks on Dr. Einstein to all those who support the Einstein ideas or methods, and concluding with a demand that their influence be excluded in de-. ciding future unlversity appoint- ments.
In this controversy the weight of numbers and authority seems to be on the side of the theoretical physi- cists, but the “German’’ physicists are winning out because they have greater party orthodoxy on their side.
The New York Times
Published: March 9, 1936 |
2022
Russia claims to have taken full control of Mariupol
By ELENA BECATOROS, OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI and CIARAN McQUILLAN
May 20, 2022
POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed to have captured Mariupol on Friday in what would be its biggest victory yet in its war with Ukraine, after a nearly three- month siege that reduced much of the strategic port city to a smoking ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin the “complete liberation” of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol — the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance — and the city as a whole, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the ministry as saying a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters who had been holed up at the steelworks had surrendered since Monday, including over 500 on Friday.
As they surrendered, the troops were taken prisoner by the Russians, and at least some were taken to a former penal colony. Others were said to be hospitalized.
The defense of the steel mill had been led by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of an effort to cast its invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Russia said the Azov commander was taken away from the plant in an armored vehicle.
Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the steel mill’s defenders for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them “Nazis” and criminals. That has stirred international fears about their fate.
The steelworks, which sprawled across 11 square kilometers (4 square miles), had been the site of fierce fighting for weeks. The dwindling group of outgunned fighters had held out, drawing Russian airstrikes, artillery and tank fire, before their government ordered them to abandon the plant’s defense and save themselves.
The complete takeover of Mariupol gives Putin a badly needed victory in the war he began on Feb. 24 — a conflict that was supposed to have been a lightning conquest for the Kremlin but instead has seen the failure to take the capital of Kyiv, a pullback of forces to refocus on eastern Ukraine, and the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Military analysts said Mariupol’s capture at this point is of mostly symbolic importance, since the city was already effectively under Moscow’s control and most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the fighting there had already left.
In other developments Friday, the West moved to pour billions more in aid into Ukraine and fighting raged in the Donbas, the industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine that Putin is bent on capturing.
Russian forces shelled a vital highway and kept up attacks on a key city in the Luhansk region, hitting a school among other sites, Ukrainian authorities said. Luhansk is part of the Donbas.
The Kremlin had sought control of Mariupol to complete a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to join the larger battle for the Donbas. The city’s loss also deprives Ukraine of a vital seaport.
Mariupol endured some of the worst suffering of the war and became a worldwide symbol of defiance. An estimated 100,000 people remained out a prewar population of 450,000, many trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed- out buildings.
A maternity hospital was hit with a lethal Russian airstrike on March 9, producing searing images of pregnant women being evacuated from the place. A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in a bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter, although the real death toll could be closer to 600.
Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves just outside Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of concealing the slaughter by burying up to 9,000 civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday the evacuation of his forces from the miles of tunnels and bunkers beneath Azovstal was done to save the lives of the fighters.
Earlier this month, hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the plant during humanitarian cease- fires and spoke of the terror of ceaseless bombardment, the dank conditions underground and the fear that they wouldn’t make it out alive.
As the end drew near at Azovstal, wives of fighters who held out at the steelworks told of what they feared would be their last contact with their husbands.
Olga Boiko, wife of a marine, wiped away tears as she said that her husband had written her on Thursday: “Hello. We surrender, I don’t know when I will get in touch with you and if I will at all. Love you. Kiss you. Bye.”
Natalia Zaritskaya, wife of another fighter at Azovstal, said that based on the messages she had seen over the past two days, “Now they are on the path from hell to hell. Every inch of this path is deadly.”
She said that two days ago, her husband reported that of the 32 soldiers with whom he had served, only eight survived, most of them seriously wounded.
While Russia described the troops leaving the steel plant as a mass surrender, the Ukrainians called it a mission fulfilled. They said the fighters had tied down Moscow’s forces and hindered their bid to seize the east.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, described the defense of Mariupol as “the Thermopylae of the 21st century” — a reference to one of history’s most glorious defeats, in which 300 Spartans held off a much larger Persian force in 480 B.C. before finally succumbing.
In other developments Friday:
— Zelenskyy said Russia should be made to pay for every home, school, hospital and business it destroys. He called on Ukraine’s partners to seize Russian funds and property under their jurisdiction and use them to create a fund to compensate those who suffered.
Russia “would feel the true weight of every missile, every bomb, every shell that it has fired at us,” he said in his nightly video address.
— The Group of Seven major economies and global financial institutions agreed to provide more money to bolster Ukraine’s finances, bringing the total to $19.8 billion. In the U.S., President Joe Biden was expected to sign a $40 billion package of military and economic aid to Ukraine and its allies.
— Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland on Saturday, the Finnish state energy company said, just days after Finland applied to join NATO. Finland had refused Moscow’s demand that it pay for gas in rubles. The cutoff is not expected to have any major immediate effect. Natural gas accounted for just 6% of Finland’s total energy consumption in 2020, Finnish broadcaster YLE said.
— A captured Russian soldier accused of killing a civilian awaited his fate in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, could get life in prison.
— Russian lawmakers proposed a bill to lift the age limit of 40 for Russians volunteering for military service. Currently, all Russian men 18 to 27 must undergo a year of service, though many get college deferments and other exemptions.
Heavy fighting was reported Friday in the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking expanse of coal mines and factories.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said Russian forces shelled the Lysychansk- Bakhmut highway from multiple directions, taking aim at the only road for evacuating people and delivering humanitarian supplies.
“The Russians are trying to cut us off from it, to encircle the Luhansk region,” he said via email.
Moscow’s troops have also been trying for weeks to seize Severodonetsk, a key city in the Donbas, and at least 12 people were killed there on Friday, Haidai said. A school that was sheltering more than 200 people, many of them children, was hit, and more than 60 houses were destroyed across the region, he added.
But he said the Russians took losses in the attack on Severodonetsk and were forced to retreat. His account could not be independently verified.
Another city, Rubizhne, has been “completely destroyed,” Haidai said. “Its fate can be compared to that of Mariupol.”
___
McQuillan reported from Lviv. Stashevskyi reported from Kyiv. Associated Press journalists Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and other AP staffers around the world contributed.
Associated Press Published: May 20, 2022
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2023
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Soon to Announce White House Run, Sows Doubts About Vaccines
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
April 17, 2023
WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood before the Lincoln Memorial in January 2022 and condemned the federal government’s coronavirus response by railing against totalitarianism. Jews in Nazi Germany, he suggested, had more freedom than Americans facing vaccination mandates and school, church and business closures in the era of Covid-19.
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland,” he told a crowd of flag-waving anti-vaccine enthusiasts at a “Defeat the Mandates” rally. “You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”
Mr. Kennedy later apologized, though it was not the first time he had invoked the Holocaust. Over the past two decades, as he has pursued what he calls “safe vaccine activism,” Mr. Kennedy has evolved from an environmental lawyer concerned about mercury poisoning into a crusader for individual liberty — a path that has landed him, a scion of a storied Democratic clan, in the unlikely embrace of the American political right.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy plans to formally announce that he is challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination for president. His vaccine skepticism gives him something in common with another candidate: former President Donald J. Trump, who like Mr. Kennedy has blamed childhood vaccines for autism — a discredited theory that has been repudiated by more than a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies in multiple countries.
“Robert F. Kennedy could jump into the Republican primary for president and only DeSantis and Trump, I think, would do better,” Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, said recently on his podcast, referring to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Bannon said Mr. Kennedy had a “massive following” with his audience. “People love this guy,” he said.
Vaccination is a singular public health success that has saved untold millions of lives. Vaccines have eradicated smallpox, averted millions of deaths from measles and sent naturally occurring polio cases plummeting, from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to six reported cases worldwide in 2021, according to the World Health Organization.
Mr. Kennedy has insisted that he is not opposed to vaccines and that his sole interest is in making them safer. “I’m not anti-vaccine, although I’m kind of the poster child for the anti-vax movement,” he said during a recent speech at Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian college in Michigan.
But through his nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, and his movies, speeches and books — including one that portrays Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry — Mr. Kennedy has used his platform and his family’s star power to sow doubts about vaccine safety, spreading misinformation by twisting facts out of context.
In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named him one of its “Disinformation Dozen” — the 12 people whom the organization found to have been responsible for roughly three-quarters of anti-vaccine content on Facebook.
Facebook and Instagram have removed the accounts of Children’s Health Defense, and Mr. Kennedy has accused them of censorship. He is also suing the Biden administration and Dr. Fauci, who for decades led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, accusing them of pressuring social media companies to censor free speech.
Mr. Kennedy declined to be interviewed. In an email message, he said Children’s Health Defense had “an extremely robust fact- checking operation.” He also pointed to a response by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, disputing the “Disinformation Dozen” report. Meta critiqued the study’s design, saying that focusing on just 12 people “misses the forest for the trees.”
Family Backlash
Mr. Kennedy, 69, is the third- eldest child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy and a nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who urged Americans to take the Salk polio vaccine and signed the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962 to help states and cities carry out childhood immunization programs.
His activism, and now his political aspirations, have been wrenching for his family. Some of his family members have publicly rebuked him. His sister Rory Kennedy told CNN she was backing Mr. Biden, while his sister Kerry Kennedy said in a statement, “I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues.”
Ahead of his White House bid, Mr. Kennedy is playing up his family history. He lives in California but plans to make his announcement in Boston, a city closely identified with the Kennedys. He recently tweeted a photo of himself in a vintage “Kennedy for President” T-shirt.
His name and family reputation have opened doors for him. Dr. Fauci said he had met with Mr. Kennedy several times and had told him “that I believe that his intentions are not evil, but his information is incorrect, and he’s misguided and can inadvertently cause significant harm.” Dr. Fauci said that when Mr. Kennedy’s book about him, titled “The Real Anthony Fauci,” came out in 2021, he was “really shocked.”
“The entire book is such a complete lie,” Dr. Fauci said.
Mr. Kennedy’s messages often have a grain of truth. The Children’s Health Defense website, for instance, says “vaccines contain many ingredients, some of which are known to be neurotoxic, carcinogenic and cause autoimmunity.” Vaccines do contain preservatives and additives, such as aluminum salts, which have been in use in vaccines for decades. Studies show adverse reactions are rare and typically involve skin allergies.
The Children’s Health Defense website also states that certain vaccines are not tested against placebos in clinical trials, citing polio, hepatitis and meningitis vaccines as examples. That is misleading. Brand-new vaccines — from polio to measles to Covid-19 — are tested in large clinical trials that include placebo groups. But scientists agree it would be unethical to withhold lifesaving vaccines from study participants. For that reason, when older vaccines are reformulated or updated, studies do not include a placebo group.
“Vaccine injuries can and do happen,” the website declares. That is true as well, but the federal government has an aggressive system to track and detect side effects so they can be addressed.
The measles vaccine, for instance, lowers the platelet count in about one in every 25,000 to 30,000 people. That can cause red spots from bleeding under the skin — a problem that is usually “short-lived and self- resolving,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. But measles causes that problem in one in 3,000 children — roughly 10 times as many as the vaccine, he said.
“There are no risk-free choices, just choices to take different risks,” said Dr. Offit, who has been a vocal critic of Mr. Kennedy. “You could argue the greatest risk of vaccines is driving to the office to get them.”
A Movement Grows
By his own account, Mr. Kennedy was at first a reluctant critic of vaccination. He got involved in 2005, when he was an environmental lawyer suing coal-fired power plants to force them to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic chemicals.
The anti-vaccine movement in the United States had been growing amid debate over a rise in cases of autism. In 1998, a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published a study of 12 children in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, that suggested a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
The article was retracted in 2010, and Mr. Wakefield was later barred from practicing medicine. But in the years after its publication, another theory began to take hold: that thimerosal, a mercury- based preservative that had been used for decades to prevent bacteria from growing in multiple-dose vials of vaccines, caused autism.
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine never contained thimerosal, but other vaccines given to infants did. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is “no evidence” that the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines c ause harm, “except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”
But in 1999, after Congress directed the Food and Drug Administration to look at mercury in all products, the American Academy of Pediatrics, federal health agencies and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be removed from childhood vaccines. The decision was made “out of an abundance of caution,” said Daniel Salmon, the director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
But the move alarmed parents. As Mr. Kennedy traveled the country giving speeches, he has said, mothers of intellectually disabled children began buttonholing him, pressing him to investigate vaccines.
“They would say to me in a very respectful but also kind of vaguely scolding way, ‘If you’re really interested in mercury exposures to children, you need to look at vaccines,’” he told the Hillsdale College audience.
In 2005, Rolling Stone and Salon copublished an article by Mr. Kennedy, headlined “Deadly Immunity,” that blamed thimerosal in vaccines for fueling the rise in autism. Salon later retracted the article. Mr. Kennedy insisted Salon caved to pressure from government regulators and the pharmaceutical industry.
Thimerosal is still used in flu vaccines. In 2015, shortly after Mr. Kennedy published a book about the preservative, he met Eric Gladen, an engineer who believes he was sickened by thimerosal in a tetanus vaccine and who made a film about his experience. The two joined forces. Mr. Gladen’s advocacy group, World Mercury Project, was later rebranded as Children’s Health Defense.
“We had two huge tools to raise funds; we had my film, which is about 10 years of research put into 90 minutes, and his book,” Mr. Gladen said in an interview, adding, “Between him being a Kennedy, the film and his book, it compelled a lot of people to get involved.”
The anti-vaccine movement was, at the time, largely the province of the political left. Mr. Kennedy found allies in Hollywood celebrities like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy. In California, he waged an unsuccessful fight against a bill to eliminate the “personal belief” exemption that allowed parents to opt out of vaccinating their children.
Mr. Kennedy has been a vocal opponent of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act, a 1986 federal law intended to promote the development of vaccines by shielding manufacturers from lawsuits. In 2003, at the height of the thimerosal controversy, a bipartisan measure to update the law by offering immunity to vaccine additive manufacturers collapsed in Congress.
Mr. Kennedy points to such efforts as evidence that lawmakers and federal regulators are conspiring to protect drug companies, which he says lack incentives to focus on safety. During the fight over the California legislation, he invoked those arguments, said Dr. Richard Pan, a former state senator who was an author of the bill and met with Mr. Kennedy at the time.
“He mainly focused on the F.D.A. being corrupt and in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies to hide the danger of vaccines,” Dr. Pan said.
Meeting With Trump
Shortly before Mr. Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, Mr. Kennedy met with him at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Mr. Kennedy said afterward that the president-elect wanted him to lead a “vaccine safety and scientific integrity” commission. He told Science magazine that Mr. Trump had told him he had five friends whose healthy children “developed a suite of deficits” after being vaccinated.
The commission never came to pass, but the coronavirus pandemic gave Mr. Kennedy an even bigger platform. As the country grew ever more polarized, with many of Mr. Trump’s followers shunning the vaccines and Dr. Fauci becoming a lightning rod, Mr. Kennedy’s book about Dr. Fauci became a best seller.
Another book by Mr. Kennedy is due out in June, this time focusing on the controversy over the origins of the coronavirus. Titled “The Wuhan Cover-Up,” it claims that federal health officials “conspired with the Chinese military” to hide the pandemic’s origins — an assertion that appears to conflate experiments by the Chinese military at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with other work there funded by the U.S. government.
How much Mr. Kennedy will talk about vaccine safety during his presidential campaign remains unclear. As he did during the rally at the Lincoln Memorial, he used his talk at Hillsdale College to cloak his activism in a broader point — that the government, the press and social media companies are trying to silence him, pushing the United States toward tyranny.
“The founders, specifically Hamilton, Madison, Adams, said, ‘We put freedom of expression in the First Amendment because all the other amendments are dependent on it,’” Mr. Kennedy said. “Because if you give a government the right to silence their opponents, they now have a license for any atrocity.”
The New York Times
Published: April 17, 2023
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