RFK Jr. Confirmed: Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Believes Lyme Disease Was Manufactured at Plum Island

Between the Montauk Project, Camp Hero, and the Montauk Monster, the belief that Lyme disease was manufactured at Plum Island Animal Disease Center has probably been one of the lesser-known conspiracy theories about the East End – until now.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was grilled on his belief in this and other conspiracy theories during his confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate voted 52-48 to confirm President Donald Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to be the next secretary of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

“Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) asked Kennedy. RFK Jr.  — the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy — responded: “I probably did say that.”

In the past, Kennedy has claimed that Lyme disease – which was first identified in Lyme, Connecticut in 1975 and named for the community – originated in the Plum Island lab. In addition to his thoughts on Lyme disease’s origins, his views on other things such as vaccines, healthcare accessibility, and more were discussed during his confirmation hearings.

Kennedy went into more detail on a January 2024 episode of his podcast, which is available on YouTube. In that same episode, he also claimed West Nile virus could have come from Plum Island.

“Another thing that keeps us from enjoying the outdoors and keeps us locked inside and the idea that this may have been, is highly likely to have been a military weapon, and we cannot say 100 percent for sure, but we do know that they were experimenting with ticks there,” Kennedy said to podcast guest Kris Newby. “The ticks, as you show, are an epidemic because of what happened at Plum Island and the other labs. We also know that they were experimenting with diseases of the kind, like Lyme disease, at that lab, and they were putting them in ticks and then infecting people.”

This belief is not supported by scientists. According to research conducted by the Yale School of Medicine, “the ongoing Lyme disease epidemic was not sparked by a recent introduction of the bacterium or an evolutionary change — such as a mutation that made the bacterium more readily transmissible. It is tied to the ecological transformation of much of North America. Specifically, forest fragmentation and the population explosion of deer in the last century have created optimal conditions for the spread of ticks and triggered this ongoing epidemic.”

The Plum Island Animal Disease Center was a federal government research facility located on Plum Island, just east of Orient Point, primarily focused on studying foreign animal diseases that could threaten livestock, such as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever. Established in 1954, the center was run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and later overseen by the Department of Homeland Security after 2003.

Plum Island’s primary mission was to protect U.S. agriculture and food security by developing vaccines, diagnostics, and containment strategies for highly contagious livestock diseases. Due to the sensitive nature of its work, access to the island was restricted, fueling such speculation and conspiracy theories. 

Dan’s Papers previously reported that Plum Island’s decommissioning was set to begin in December 2024, and its research is being transferred to the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas.

Of the multitude of fringe views regarding the lab, Dr. Lawrence Barrett told reporters in 2013: “We didn’t have anything to do with any of those.” 

Kennedy had initially run for president in 2024. At first, he challenged former President Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries but withdrew and launched an independent campaign. After Biden dropped out and threw his support behind former Vice President Kamala Harris, Kennedy reportedly sought out Harris to withdraw and endorse her in exchange for a cabinet position. When he got no response from the Harris campaign, he endorsed Trump.