Falsehood can pay off big. According to an analysis of public tax records carried out by the investigative site ProPublica, an anti-vaccine group, founded by US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Junior, pocketed some $46 million between 2020 and 2022 by sharing false information during the health crisis.
Like four other NGOs, the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) organization had argued that vaccines against Covid-19 cause high rates of mortality in infants and cause sterility. Words which allowed these NGOs to raise more than 100 million dollars in the space of two years.
Experts believe that these organizations have harmed public health by questioning the effectiveness of the serum. In addition, this report reveals “how profitable misinformation against vaccination and around Covid-19” can be, deplores David Gorski, professor at the school of medicine at Wayne State University in Michigan. . “It would be one thing if these groups did nothing but peddle quackery, but they have become politically influential,” he observes.
Thus, the organization founded by Kennedy, with $23.5 million raised in 2022 alone, has become one of the leading “alternative and natural medicine” sites in the world, according to the digital analysis site Similarweb.
$510,000 for the boss of CHD
Funds paid to nonprofits often protect the anonymity of their donors through an intermediary, making it difficult to identify their source. But Phil Hackney, professor of law and former official of the US Federal Tax Service (IRS), explains that these organizations could lose their status because an NGO must “provide a factual basis” for its mission. “These groups go against our tax code and are truly harmful,” he told AFP.
The increase in CHD’s turnover was also accompanied by an increase in the salaries of its managers. Robert Kennedy Junior, nephew of assassinated US President “JFK”, pocketed around $510,000 as the organization’s boss in 2022 – more than double his pre-pandemic salary.
Known for years for spreading conspiracy theories against vaccination, he temporarily withdrew from his functions within CHD to devote himself to the presidential campaign. THE latest surveyproduced by Yougov for The Economist at the beginning of April, places him at 3% of voting intentions at the national level.