All Robert F. Kennedy Jr wants, aside from the sweet, sweet chafing of wet jeans on his groin, is proof that vaccines cause autism. He wants it to be true more than you or I have ever wanted anything in our lives. He needs it to be true. Because if it's not true (spoiler: it's not true) an absolute fuckton of children have gotten sick or even died because he convinced their parents that it is.

As of July 9, there have been 2,231 documented cases of measles in the United States -- 51 more, and we'll surpass the total number of cases last year, which had the highest number of measles cases since 1991. Now, as far as we're concerned, that's not very good news, but we're not Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who must be pretty jazzed about it, given that it's a sign that vaccination rates have significantly decreased.

A recent report from Reuters alleges that RFK Jr tried to secure a whole five billion dollars -- ten percent of the entire budget of the National Institutes Health -- to "investigate" the theory that vaccines cause autism, a thing that has been disproven many, many times over, as several enormous metastudies have confirmed.

Alas, his dreams were reportedly dashed after NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya convinced him that the $50 million the agency was already spending on his pet project was enough (for now).

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