RFK Jr.’s lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke polio vaccine approval

WEST PALM BEACH — An adviser and lawyer helping Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vet potential agency officials has filed over a dozen lawsuits challenging the availability of common vaccines — including the polio vaccine.

According to a Friday report from The New York Times, Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented Kennedy during his campaign, has spent much of his career filing legal challenges against vaccines on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, an anti-vaccine group founded by Del Bigtree, a notorious vaccine conspiracy theorist and close Kennedy ally.

Siri’s work includes a 2022 challenge asking officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — an agency Kennedy would gain oversight of if confirmed as HHS secretary — to revoke their authorization of the polio vaccine. Siri has also challenged the availability of the hepatitis B, tetanus, Covid-19, and diphtheria vaccines, and has also subjected vaccine researchers and doctors to lengthy depositions on their work.