Caroline Kennedy wrote a scathing letter to Key Senators Tuesday, calling Cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a “predator” addicted to the dissemination of dangerous views on vaccinations and someone who is not able to be the secretary of country health.
She urged the legislators, who will question Mr. Kennedy during his confirmation hearings on Wednesday and Thursday, to reject her appointment. She quoted her lack of experience, her poorly informed opinions on vaccines and personal attributes. In the letter, she described how he directed the other members of the family “on the path of drug addiction”.
“His basement, his garage and his dormitory were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he liked to show how he put chickens and mice in the mixer to feed his hawks,” wrote Ms. Kennedy . “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”
His letter was reported for the first time to the Washington Post.
Ms. Kennedy expressed particular indignation with regard to the new disclosure of her ethical agreement filed with the Senate, which she described as describing how her “crusade against vaccination took advantage of other ways”.
She quoted Mr. Kennedy’s decision To keep a financial participation In dispute against Merck, which makes a key vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) which is administered to protect against cervical cancer.
“In other words, he is ready to get rich by denying access to a vaccine which can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been securely administered to millions of boys and girls, “wrote Ms. Kennedy.
As an ambassador of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Australia, Ms. Kennedy was actively involved in the promotion of the HPV vaccine, which put Australia on a track to eliminate cancer of the cervix . She played a decisive role in the persuasion of Mr. Biden Expand his “Moonshot cancer»Initiative to the Indo-Pacific Region.
In her role as ambassador, Ms. Kennedy said she was reluctant to make public comments against Mr. Kennedy, who launched her presidential campaign in 2023 as the main challenger of Mr. Biden before appearing as independent candidate. When Mr. Kennedy abandoned his presidential candidacy, he approved Mr. Trump, who, after winning the elections, appointed Mr. Kennedy as his health secretary.
After that, she broken with his cousinsaying that his opinions on vaccination were dangerous.
His letter painted Mr. Kennedy as a charismatic figure, “willing to take risks and break the rules” and to attract others through the strength of his magnetic personality. She then retraced a tragic history of Mr. Kennedy’s influence on other family members.
“But the brothers and sisters and cousins that Bobby encouraged on the path of drug addiction suffered an addiction, a disease and a death,” she wrote, “while Bobby distorted, lie and cheat through life. “
Mr. Kennedy’s youngest Brother David is dead In Palm Beach County in May 1984 of “multiple ingestion” of three drugs found in its body fluids, authorities said at the time.
Other parents have also spoken Against Mr. Kennedy, including his brother Joseph Kennedy II and his sister Kerry Kennedy, who described his comments on the race and vaccines as “deplorable and lies”.
Tuesday, Jack Schlossberg, the son of Mrs. Kennedy, who also criticized Mr. Kennedy, published a video On the social networks of her mother who read the letter she had written.
“I am so proud of my courageous mother, who has lived a life of dignity, integrity and service,” wrote Mr. Schlossberg.
Ms. Kennedy, in the letter sent on Tuesday, granted her credit to her cousin for overcoming her drug addiction, which Mr. Kennedy in depth discussed. By his own account, Mr. Kennedy became addicted to the heroine at the age of 14, in 1968, when he was fighting to face the assassination of his father. In 1984, he guilty to an accusation of crime of possession of heroin and treatment.
But Ms. Kennedy was severe in the criticism of the advocacy of her cousin against vaccines, describing him as part of an addiction to attention and power.
“Bobby attacks the despair of parents of sick children-vaccinating his own children while building follow-up by hypocritically discouraging the other parents from the vaccination of their,” she wrote.
Ms. Kennedy also underlined “the conspiratorial half-truths he spoke of vaccines”, as part of 2019 Epidemia of measles in the Samoathat she said “costing lives”.
The letter was sent to senators who direct the committees that will examine his appointment this week, notably Mike Crapo, a republican of Idaho; Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat; Bill Cassidy, republican of Louisiana and Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont.
She noted that the family is close and that speech was difficult. However, she criticized her cousin for having used the heritage of the family’s tragedy for political ends. Mr. Kennedy’s father Robert F. Kennedy was murdered during a campaign for the presidency in 1968. His father and uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was fatally killed in Dallas in 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “distorted President Kennedy’s inheritance to advance his own failed presidential campaign – then brought back to Donald Trump for a job,” said the letter. “Bobby continues to perform the assassination of my father and that of his own father.”
She suggested that her father John F. Kennedy, his uncle Robert F. Kennedy and another uncle, the long -standing legislator Ted Kennedy, “would be disgusted”.
She closed the letter with a plea for senators to reject the appointment of her cousin in the name of doctors, nurses, scientists and caregivers who feed the American health system.
“They deserve a secretary determined to advance advanced medicine to save lives, without rejecting the progress we have already made,” wrote Ms. Kennedy. “They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the head of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy – and we too the rest of us. »»