Science educator Bill Nye says he was forced to block Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after being bombarded with texts pushing debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Nye laughed about the flood of messages, saying Kennedy — a longtime vaccine skeptic — was “relentless,” sending “page after page after page” trying to convince him of a link rejected by scientific consensus.
“I just told him he confused causation with correlation,” Nye explained. “Just because somebody got a vaccination and then somebody else got autism doesn’t mean one caused the other. This is science.”
Nye also suggested President Donald Trump deliberately chose a controversial figure like Kennedy to lead HHS. “Respectfully, the president likes things to be chaotic,” Nye said. “So he hires people who are controversial on purpose and here we are.”
Kennedy has faced criticism for spreading vaccine misinformation — views that have been thoroughly debunked by public health experts and researchers worldwide.
As of this week, there have been more measles cases in 2025 than any year since the virus was declared eradicated in the US in 2000, according to the CDC. This year, 1,288 people have had a confirmed case of the vaccine-preventable virus.
Vaccine compliance rates among children entering kindergarten have declined nationwide — from 95% in 2019 to 93% in 2023. Experts fear the measles outbreak is a “canary in a coal mine,” signaling a return of preventable disease outbreaks.
Originally published on Latin Times
