RFK Jr.’s Chimpanzee Conspiracy Theory
The health secretary believes that a common respiratory virus leaked from a government lab.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been spreading misinformation about the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), claiming that it "came from a laboratory" or was the result of gain-of-function experiments. He has made these false statements during interviews on CNN and Fox News in August, despite the fact that RSV is not caused by a laboratory experiment.
The CDC recommends the RSV vaccine for older adults and pregnant women, but Kennedy chose to focus on the unfounded origin story. Some of the theories he has proposed include RSV originating from captive chimpanzees at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, being deliberately infected in a lab worker, and being introduced into humans through polio vaccines.
Despite being debunked, Kennedy continues to repeat these unscientific claims, relying on loyalists and not on experts.
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