False2025-05
What is circulating
“At a Senate hearing on 14 May 2025, when Sen. Chris Murphy listed Kennedy's past claims that the measles vaccine wanes quickly, was never safety tested and contains fetal debris, Kennedy replied: "All true. All true."”
Claimed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary · official statement
The facts
PolitiFact rated the claim False. Two doses of measles vaccine are about 97 percent effective and experts consider the protection lifelong, and the combined MMR vaccine was approved in 1971 after extensive clinical testing, with ongoing surveillance. The rubella component is grown in fetal cell lines from the 1960s, but the vaccine contains no whole fetal cells, only possible DNA fragments measured in picograms.