RFK Jr. is not his Dad. He’s no Bobby Kennedy.

My memories of childhood are necessarily vague and subject to cross-examination. I used to believe in the integrity of my own memory, but now I realise (from experience) that memory is unreliable – apt to be rose-tinted or sanitised, as if it was your life, but adapted for television.

We all do this – imagining a better past than really existed. We forget the boredom, the rainy days, the coldness of classrooms, and all the normal, boring stuff of existence – while we remember the day-trips, the holidays, and all the exceptional stuff.

I remember the local pub being festooned with pictures of hurling teams and two large portraits – one of Pope John XXIII and another of John F. Kennedy, who was a kind of saint too. Later, John (the XXIII) was replaced by Paul VI, and a glowing red light in front of his picture indicated that while this might be a place for bawdiness and even drunkenness, the light of the church still shone brightly – honouring the holy man.

Which was fine until someone cleaned the pictures and replaced them incorrectly, this time with JFK having the red light illuminating his handsome visage. Nobody noticed for years. That was the secular and scapular entwined in holy union within the Irish brain. We all hoped for an outside agency to help us with the poverty, the misery, the everything.

We even had apparitions. Senator Ted Kennedy visited our tiny village on a journey from Shannon Airport to Dublin and his descent from heavenly America was duly noted on a sign outside the pub he stopped in. As a newborn, I was brought to the great man to be kissed. It was felt at the time that being even in the presence of greatness (even once) was a great aid to one in life. It would bring luck and similar success.

However, in this case, it didn’t help. Kennedy lost his bid for the Presidency. The sign is still there, even though the pub closed years ago. The affection and love for the Kennedys – ‘our’ royal family – was real though. They were latter day saints. And martyrs.

Though there was poverty in the area, to my father, life was luxurious beyond belief. The fact that most people weren’t hungry or sickened by TB, malnutrition, alcoholism or poverty made living so much easier than it had been when he was young.

He would often talk about the ‘miracle’ of vaccination and very proudly tell me that not alone could he cure disease – a fantastic thing in itself, when it happened – but, and he would smile triumphantly at this moment – HE COULD PREVENT DISEASE FROM HAPPENING!

This was the apex, the crowning of his career as a GP. He grew up in an era when childhood diseases routinely took children to their graves, and it was so common, so normal, that no-one bothered to do much grieving about it. It was the way it was. God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. God was taking the children, but modern vaccines were allowing my Dad to save them. And you know what that implies.

We were driving down a country road one day when we passed a woman walking along with her two children and another in a buggy. He did a quick braking and swerve in front of the family and jumped out to greet the woman and her children.

He explained to her that all her children had missed vaccination, but not to worry, he would inject them all right there and then. It was pure Father Ted: “Oh I don’t know about that doctor, I don’t want the children getting sick.”

That used to be the complaint. People’s lack of understanding of vaccines led them to believe that the vaccines would make their children sick, and naturally, they knew better.

He ignored her arguments, injecting and debating with certainty, humanity and kindness – but also with a certain degree of forcefulness. He told the woman she ‘had’ to do this to protect others, but there was and is no law that says that. Except, maybe, the law of the village. If it takes a village to educate a child, it also only takes one child and one infection to kill a child.

That woman did not disagree enough or argue enough to save her children from vaccination. Thank Dad. They may very well be alive today because of it. The good that men do is oft interred with their bones. But sometimes it goes on and on after they are dead.

Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy was my hero. He wanted to make America a place for all races and a peaceful leader of the free world. He wanted to end the mafia, discrimination, poverty and create a better world. He was a great man, gunned down in the Ambassador Hotel, in Los Angeles, California, in that year of assassinations, 1968.

Bobby Kennedy was a hero – a great promise America made to itself, unfulfilled. He was a man of integrity, truth and decency.

His son, RFK Jr., however, is a dangerous idiot.

RFK Jr. was hugely influential in the Samoan outbreak of measles in 2019 that caused at least 83 deaths and 1,867 hospitalisations. Thousands more fell ill.

While one of the reasons for this outbreak was the Samoan government’s public health mismanagement, the influence of RFK Jr. in promoting anti-vaccine sentiment was a major factor. He visited Samoa four months before the outbreak was declared – meeting with government officials and stoking distrust about vaccines with a ‘significant disinformation campaign’.

Kennedy – and his wife Cheryl Hines – were invited to Samoa by ‘traditional healer’ Edwin Tamasese. He was later arrested during the epidemic for incitement against a government vaccination order. Kennedy later hailed Tamasese as a ‘hero’ in a blog post and also described the epidemic as ‘mild’. Remember, 83 children died of measles. To him, these unnecessary deaths were ‘mild’.

After his visit Kennedy wrote to the Samoan President urging him to consider if the children’s deaths were caused by a ‘defective’ vaccine or a ‘mutant strain’ of measles. Neither suggestion is plausible.

The only mutant here is the mutant Kennedy.

Kennedy has also spread falsehoods about the MMR vaccine and its connection to autism. According to the Centre for Countering Digital Health, he is one of the top disinformation super-spreaders in the world.

Kennedy is an idiot and a nutcase. But he still carries (and uses to his advantage) the name ‘Kennedy’. That name has a powerful resonance in Ireland, and even though we think of ourselves now as modern and sophisticated, we can’t assume that every Irish person is immune to the ‘Kennedy’ line of BS.

And it’s only going to get worse. Elon Musk spent millions getting Trump elected and he has since made billions from it. He’s trying to do the same now in Germany and Europe in general. Mark Zuckerberg has now bowed down to Trump & Co. and agreed to no fact-checking on Facebook.

So now, doctors especially – but everyone in healthcare – must more than ever tell the vaccine story and explain – even if it is interminable – the life-saving advantages of vaccines. We need to repeat and repeat and repeat that message, and yet, Musk and Kennedy can algorithm us out of the public debate, while letting their own erroneous messages spread far and wide.

No-one elected them, but we live in an oligarch’s world now, and no-one elected Zuckerberg or Musk or Bezos either, but we have to deal with them. Social media ensures that.

And we have to deal with the fact that the proposed new Head of Health and Human Services in the US is an anti-vaxxer.

Don’t mistake the man for his father. RFK Jr. is not a competent person, and many doubt his actual sanity. He strapped the head of a whale he found on the beach to the top of his car and took it home.

He’s about to take us all on a much more insane and deadlier trip. We all must try to limit his reach and influence.