RFK Jr. and HIV Denial: He Says He is Neutral, But...

When President Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his choice for HHS secretary, many health experts were left scratching their heads — and more — because of what they see as large catalogue of beliefs that are contrary to science. This morning, Kennedy is scheduled to sit for the first of two Senate hearings when senators will question him about those beliefs and decide whether to vote for his confirmation.

The HHS secretary is a big job to do, to put mildly. The department encompasses all of the federal government's health agencies including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, the FDA and CMS.

The senators on the Senate Finance Committee may quiz Kennedy today about this leadership and managerial experience, but the spotlight is likely to be trained on his statements connecting vaccines to autism, the dangers of fluoride, and COVID-19 and race.

Although they have received less attention than his views on vaccines, Kennedy has also staked out controversial positions on the HIV and AIDS.

When it comes to HIV policy, one of Kennedy’s biggest targets is Anthony Fauci, M.D., the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Kennedy attacks Fauci relentlessly in his 934-page book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health," co-published in 2021 by the Children's Health Defense, an antivaccine group that Kennedy led. "Readers of these pages will learn how in exalting patented medicine, Dr. Fauci has, throughout his long career, routinely falsified science, deceived the public and physicians, and lied about safety and efficacy," Kennedy wrote in the forward.

In the fifth chapter of the book, titled "HIV Heresies," Kennedy writes several times that he is neutral on the whether HIV causes AIDS. "From the outset I want to make clear that I take no position on the relationship between HIV and AIDS," he says at the beginning of the chapter. Later on, though, Kennedy says in a parenthetical passage that he believes that HIV is "a cause of AIDS" and there are numerous mentions throughout the chapter of HIV infection not being the sole cause of AIDS.

Despite assertions that he is not taking sides, Kennedy spends much of the chapter on HIV presenting arguments made by Peter Duesberg, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and perhaps the most influential HIV "denier." Duesberg has argued that HIV does not cause AIDS but is a "free rider" common to high-risk populations who suffer immune suppression due to environmental exposures.

In "The Real Anthony Fauci,” Kennedy sums up Duesberg’s theory as follows:

“Duesberg and many who have followed him offered evidence that heavy recreational drug use in gay men and drug addicts was the real cause of immune deficiency among the first generation of AIDS sufferers. They argued that the initial signs of AIDS, Kaposi’s sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), were both strongly linked to amyl nitrate—poppers—a popular drug among promiscuous gays.”

Duesberg's views have been rejected by AIDS experts and advocates. Kennedy, though, accuses Fauci of cutting off scientific investigation and debate about the relationship between HIV and AIDS and instead using his "frightening capacity to silence dissent and mangle reputations."

After a brief resurgence of HIV-denial in the early 2000s, there was a lull until the COVID-19 pandemic, which stoked mistrust in public health and vaccine hesitancy, observed Tara C. Smith, Ph.D. a professor at the Kent State University College of Public Health, in a review article about HIV denialism published in October 2024 in the journal AIDS and Behavior.

Kennedy debuted his own antivaccine views in a 2005 Rolling Stone article titled “Deadly Immunity,” which was also published in Salon online, according to Smith. Within days, inaccuracies about false claims about connection between vaccines and autism were pointed out. Salon removed the article from its website permanently in 2011. Kennedy went on to fund Children’s Health Defense.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy called the COVID vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” while addressing Louisiana lawmakers at a meeting of the House Committee on Health & Welfare.

Injectable lenacapavir is an antiviral, not a vaccine, but when used as preexposure prophylaxis it has the same public health purpose as a vaccine, preventing infection and serious disease. The investigational, twice-yearly antiretroviral, has created quite the buzz, with investigators reporting an almost 100% success rate at preventing HIV in clinical trials when compared to placebo.

Some HIV experts are wary about the future of lenacapavir, HIV policy and care access if Kennedy is confirmed as HHS secretary. As part of its freeze on foreign aids, the Trump administration has already moved to cut off support of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a global health that is credited with curtailing the AIDS epidemic, especially in Africa.

Jose Abrigo, J.D.

“Who knows what [Kennedy’s] going to do,” Jose Abrigo, J.D., HIV Project Director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said in recent an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive.

“Lenacapavir could either be covered under the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) or be covered under the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is preventative care, period," Abrigo said. "Which government body will make that recommendation strategically so that it won’t raise RFK’s hackles and his anti-vaccine beliefs?”

Because most HIV research programs are federally funded, it’s possible that budget cuts will be made.

“President Trump, in his last term, established the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative and funded it. We don't know what the second term is going to bring,” Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said in an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive.

“You can't take away healthcare from people living with HIV," Schmid continued. "It is a lifetime requirement and unfortunately, we don’t have adequate private insurance programs or adequate Medicare programs to ensure that people have the care, treatment and support services to make sure they stay adherent to their medications. I think everything's on the table right now, and that's our job is to educate the new administration, educate the new Congress about the value of HIV prevention, research, testing, treatment and PrEP.”

Carl Schmid, Executive Director, HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.