RFK Jr. denies requiring holiday partygoers at his home to be vaccinated

Vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed back Saturday against media reports saying he had slapped a vaccination mandate on guests attending a holiday party at his home in California.

In a statement issued by Children’s Health Defense, an advocacy group he founded that questions vaccine safety, Mr. Kennedy denied that he required partygoers to receive COVID-19 vaccinations beforehand, a story broken by Politico.

“Politico and other news outlets have written near-identical stories regarding a recent holiday party at my home. The angle of these stories is that I required guests to be vaccinated in order to attend,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I did not.”

Politico reported Friday that “an invitation to a holiday party at his home in California last week urged attendees to be tested or vaccinated beforehand,” even though Mr. Kennedy is “one of the most prominent anti-vaxxers in the country.”

Mr. Kennedy told Politico that his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, sent out the e-vite invitations to her friends in the entertainment industry, adding “I guess I’m not always the boss at my own house.”

The nephew of late President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy is the author of the runaway bestseller “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” released last month by Skyhorse Publishing and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Mr. Kennedy said there was no effort to verify the vaccine status of partygoers at the fete hosted by his wife, a star of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“Children’s Health Defense and I believe that every person has the right to make health decisions free from coercion, threats or force by governments, employers, and fellow citizens,” Mr. Kennedy said in his statement. “I don’t always agree with the decisions of others, of course, but I always support their liberty to decide for themselves. I extend this respect to everyone including colleagues, friends, and family members.”

He has disputed the “anti-vaxxer” label. Skyhorse President and Publisher Anthony Lyons said the author “would say that he’s anti-corruption and he’s pro-vaccine safety, and that I think is a critical difference.”

Mr. Kennedy told a Louisiana state legislative committee earlier this month that the COVID-19 vaccine is “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” citing death reports in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System [VAERS], a claim that PolitiFact rated “pants on fire.”