Anti-Vaxxer Explains Her Position, Thrilled With Kennedy Confirmation

WASHINGTON — Rachel Bowes smiled from inside the Informed Consent Action Network’s booth in what might have been called the health and science wing of CPAC 2025’s exhibition hall.

Immediately to her left was the “Make America Healthy Again” booth, which was piled high with colorful — and pricey — swag and a power dip and pull machine upon which conference attendees were invited to test their health and stamina.

To her immediate right was a group from Curio Energy, a company that’s advocating for “a second nuclear era” and “unleashing the full power of the atom.”

With both booths at that moment being swamped, Bowes’ invitation to learn more about the ICAN seemed auspicious.

She quickly explained that the organization, for which she was serving as a CPAC volunteer, is dedicated to giving people authority over their own health choices and those of their children.

It does so by conducting research and unearthing agency documents that it then uses to push back on the “financial interests” and inescapable advertising that currently dominate the medical arena.

As Bowes spoke, she quickly offered up a copy of the organization’s pocket guide to “Vaccine Safety and Policy in the U.S.” 

It opens with an examination of how Congress granted pharmaceutical companies immunity from liability for vaccine injuries with the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986, and asserts that most childhood vaccines were licensed based on inadequate clinical trials and with little to no after-the-fact safety surveillance.

To take a step back, the act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, set up a federal vaccine injury compensation program and, “preserved the right for vaccine injured persons to bring a lawsuit in the court system if federal compensation is denied or is not sufficient or when there was evidence a drug company could have made a vaccine safe.”

In essence, it shifted liability from the pharmaceutical companies to U.S. taxpayers.

According to the National Vaccine information Center, the act also required vaccine providers to:

• Give parents vaccine benefit and risk information before their children are vaccinated.
• Keep written records of vaccine manufacturer names and lot numbers for each vaccination given.
• Enter serious health problems following vaccination into a child’s permanent medical record.
• Report serious health problems following vaccination to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. 

According to the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration, as of January 2024, the U.S. Court of Claims had awarded over $4.6 billion dollars to vaccine victims for catastrophic vaccine injuries and deaths, not including attorneys fees that are also paid by the vaccine injury compensation program. 

Since its inception, the federal program has received a total of 26,961 petitions filed for vaccine injury compensation; 1,413 were petitions filed for vaccine related deaths and 25,548 were filed for vaccine injuries. 

Of these petitions 10,443, or 39% have been compensated, while 12,651, 47%, have been denied compensation. 

The remaining 3,867, or 14%, are at various stages in the compensation process which may include claims awaiting additional information to be provided by petitioners, or a backlog of cases waiting for response from the Department of Justice, which defends the government in these cases. 

But as Bowes spoke, the conversation turned from the broad picture to the more personal.

“I cannot speak for everyone who has an interest in vaccine safety, but me, myself, I am an anti-vaxxer,” she said, quickly adding that her 10-year-old son has not been vaccinated “for anything” and has experienced nothing but typical childhood ailments, like the common cold.

By contrast, she said, “I was fully vaccinated as a child and I was sick constantly.”

“And what really blows my mind is the proliferation of vaccines,” she said, pulling out a card detailing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccination schedule.

“In 1983, children were expected to get 24 doses of various vaccines between the ages of 2 months and 15 years,” she said. “By 2024, the number rose to 90 doses by 18 years of age.”

While many medical experts say several diseases that are avoidable are making a comeback due to anti-vaxxers who refuse to vaccinate their kids, Bowes, a devotee of the CDC’s “Vaccines and Immunizations” pages focuses on a passage that states “as with any medicine, there is a very remote chance of a vaccine causing a severe allergic reaction, other serious injury or death.”

“Death,” she said with emphasis.

Though she also acknowledged the CDC website also states the most common side effects of vaccines “are usually mild and go away on their own,” she asked, “what mother isn’t going to think twice when they see that a possible outcome of something they’re giving their child is death?”

“There’s something about that that kind of triggers you,” she said. “And then you start thinking, ‘Well what steps are they taking to avoid the condition they want to vaccinate you for in the first place?’”

Bowes argues that in fact, some profound things have changed since many vaccines first came on the scene.

“I love history and from my reading and so forth, I know that we simply do not live in the same conditions that existed for people during past outbreaks of devastating disease,” she said.

“We have access today to year-round nutrition compared to when people had only what they were able to grow in one season,” she said. “We have showers and washers and dryers to clean ourselves compared to other points in history where people had none of that.

“We also don’t live in a situation where every family member will be huddled in one room around a fireplace and unable to open a window out of concern for letting out the heat,” Bowes continued. “We also have much more access to things like vitamins.

“In short, we enjoy a much better quality of life compared to what happened before, and as a result, I have never once regretted not vaccinating my son. I’ve simply never had any problems,” she said.

With that, the conversation turned to the recent confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., probably the nation’s most famous anti-vaxxer, as the new secretary of Health and Human Services.

Again emphasizing that she was speaking for herself and not the Informed Consent Action Network, she called Kennedy’s appointment by President Donald Trump “a dream.”

“Ten years ago I never would have thought that we’d be where we are now. And it just makes me feel incredible,” she said.

Bowes said unlike those who have said they feared Kennedy would virtually eliminate vaccines, she believes he’ll simply expose documented and currently undocumented issues with them and enable people to make informed choices without penalties for those who decline vaccinations. 

“To go back to what we were discussing before, if more people were able to see that vaccines can cause death, it might make them more likely to step back and ask themselves, ‘Do I want to go that route?’” she said. “We do know that vaccines come with a risk of injury and death. And if he can start a national conversation about that — and what the alternatives are — that would just be amazing.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue