In a move that has stirred both controversy and emotion, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a significant announcement on the same day he was noticeably absent from his cousin Tatiana Schlossberg’s funeral. The MAGA appointee revealed a sweeping overhaul of the vaccination program that Schlossberg had ardently supported during her lifetime.
The relationship between Kennedy Jr. and his late cousin was strained prior to her untimely passing from cancer at the age of 35. Their discord grew public in the months leading to her death, culminating in his exclusion from her funeral held earlier this week. Reports suggest that Kennedy Jr. was deliberately not invited to shield Schlossberg’s children from the glare of media attention.
Known for her outspoken criticism of her cousin’s stance on vaccinations, Schlossberg had labeled him a ‘family embarrassment’ in one of her final public statements. Her concerns extended to fearing that Kennedy Jr.’s controversial health policies might impede her access to necessary medical treatments.
On the day of her funeral, as her family gathered to mourn, Kennedy Jr. proceeded with an unexpected and contentious decision. He announced a reduction in the recommended number of vaccines for children, directly challenging the efforts Schlossberg had championed. This action was perceived by many as a direct affront to Schlossberg’s legacy and beliefs.
She even worried that her own cousin’s radical health policies could prevent her from getting the help she desperately needed.
On Monday, as his extended family grieved their loss, RFK Jr. delivered the ultimate snub to Schlossberg’s legacy, taking the unprecedented step of cutting the number of vaccines it recommends for every child.
The move has been slammed by a number of leading medical groups, who warned it would undermine protections against a half-dozen diseases.
The action, approved by Acting Director Jim O’Neill of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention without the agency’s usual outside expert review, advances Kennedy’s campaign to pare back childhood vaccinations.
The change is effective immediately, meaning that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer broadly recommend protection against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis or RSV.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered the ultimate insult to his late cousin on the same day he was snubbed from her funeral by launching an unprecedented overhaul of vaccines she had long advocated for
People are seen crying and consoling one another outside the service on Monday, which RFK Jr. was reportedly not invited to
Instead, protections against those diseases are only recommended for certain groups deemed high risk, or when doctors recommend them in what’s called ‘shared decision-making.’
Trump administration officials said the overhaul won’t result in families who want the vaccines losing access to them, and said insurance will continue to pay.
But medical experts said the decision creates confusion for parents and could increase preventable diseases.
Schlossberg had expressed concerns in a column for The New Yorker before her death about her cousin’s position of power given his stance on vaccinations.
‘Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly,’ she wrote.
‘As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly half a billion dollars for research.’
She noted that grants and clinical trials were canceled, while medical experts had their jobs threatened.
‘I worried about funding for leukemia and bone-marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I worried about the trials that were my only shot at remission,’ she wrote.
Tatiana is survived by her husband, George Moran (pictured with her), and their two kids
Her two children, Josephine (left) and Edwin (right) Moran, and her widowed husband, George Moran (right), were seen at the service
JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg looked bereft as he attended the funeral of his sister Tatiana, who died of cancer last week at the age of 35
Former President Joe Biden, who lost his son Beau to cancer in 2015, was seen crying outside the church
Schlossberg shared that one of the lifesaving drugs she was given early in her illness, misoprostol, is also part of the concoction used to offer patients medical abortions, which ‘at Bobby’s urging’ is now ‘under review’ by the FDA.
‘I freeze when I think about what would have happened if it had not been immediately available to me and to millions of other women who need it to save their lives or to get the care they deserve,’ she wrote.
Schlossberg – the granddaughter of former President John F Kennedy – died from blood cancer just six weeks after she revealed her diagnosis.
The Kennedy scion’s death was announced last Tuesday via the social media accounts for the JFK Library Foundation on behalf of her heartbroken relatives.
‘Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,’ the post reads, signed by ‘George, Edwin and Josephine Moran, Ed, Caroline, Jack, Rose and Rory.’
The New York-born environmental journalist revealed in November that doctors told her she had acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024.
Writing in the New Yorker, Tatiana said she had no symptoms and was ‘one of the healthiest people I knew’ when the diagnosis came.
Doctors only found the disease through routine blood tests after she gave birth to her second child.
Caroline Kennedy is seen alongside her daughter Rose at the funeral Monday
A heavily bearded David Letterman was seen alongside his wife, Regina Lasko, at the funeral
Jackie Kennedy, then 63, with Tatiana and her sister Rose in Central Park, New York, 1992
A source told Rob Shuter’s Naughty But Nice that Schlossberg’s funeral was being kept to immediate family and close friends – which did not include RFK Jr.
‘RFK Jr will not be invited, and the family made that decision intentionally. They are trying to shield the kids and manage their grief without extra public scrutiny or controversy,’ the source said.
Once a Trump campaign rival, RFK Jr. dropped out of the race and endorsed the president last summer. He was then tapped to lead an overhaul at HHS.
The Kennedy black sheep went through a bruising confirmation process as Democrats pushed back on his anti-vaccine conspiracies and his plans to completely revamp the public health agenda is the US.
But there was little they could do to stop Republicans from confirming him and Trump’s other contentious cabinet picks.
Under RFK Jr., U.S. vaccination rates have been slipping and the share of children with exemptions has reached an all-time high, according to federal data.
At the same time, rates of diseases that can be protected against with vaccines, such as measles and whooping cough, are rising across the country.
In May, RFK Jr. announced the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women.
Robert F Kennedy Jr was not invited to the funeral of his cousin Tatiana Schlossberg (pictured) after she ripped him in a column written weeks before her death from blood cancer
In June, he fired an entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee — later installing several of his own replacements, including multiple vaccine skeptics.
Then in November he directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.
RFK Jr. addressed the changes to vaccine recommendations on Monday, stating: ‘This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.’
Among those left on the recommended-for-everyone list are vaccines against measles, whooping cough, polio, tetanus, chickenpox and human papillomavirus, or HPV.
The guidance reduces the number of recommended vaccine doses against HPV from two or three shots depending on age to one for most children.
