‘Should have been fired’: Journalist apologizes for giving voice to RFK Jr.’s conspiracy theories

A prominent journalist is apologizing for her role 18 years ago in promoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s falsehoods about vaccines.

Joan Walsh, as Salon magazine’s editor-in-chief, ran a 2005 article authored by the anti-vaxxer published under the headline “Deadly Immunity.” She now believes she “should have been fired” for it.

Kennedy, considered among the leading voices of the anti-vaccine movement, falsely claimed that childhood vaccines caused autism, an assertion that has been debunked by medical experts.

These days Kennedy is trafficking in baseless conspiracies about the dangers of wi-fi and “other forms of junk science (that) deserve no wide hearing,” Walsh writes in a mea culpa for The Nation.

It is the second such apology Walsh has publicly made over her role in publishing Kennedy’s falsehoods. In a 2011 article announcing that it was taking down Kennedy’s piece, Walsh said, "I regret we didn't move on this more quickly, as evidence continued to emerge debunking the vaccines and autism link."

"But continued revelations of the flaws and even fraud tainting the science behind the connection make taking down the story the right thing to do."

Walsh reiterated her apology after Kennedy, in a recent New York Times interview, claimed that “Salon caved to pressure from government regulators and the pharmaceutical industry.”

Walsh writes that Kennedy “repeated the false claim in his three-hour podcast conversation with Joe Rogan, another conspiracy loon, rehashing the debunked claims of “Deadly Immunity” and claiming that Salon pulled the piece after ‘pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.’

“That’s just another lie. We caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences.”

Kennedy’s article was published by Salon in partnership with Rolling Stone.

Walsh writes that “Looking back, I had no business publishing a piece of that scientific and political complexity without help from other editors. If we together had debated Kennedy’s claims, we would have had a much better chance of finding some of the holes.”

Read the full article here.