Earlier this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his 2024 running mate will not be Aaron Rodgers or Jesse Ventura, but Silicon Valley lawyer (and Sergey Brin ex) Nicole Shanahan. What is there to know about Kennedy’s VP pick? For starters: At a time when in vitro fertilization is under serious threat, she’s a major critic of the procedure that has helped millions of people become parents.
Politico reports that Shanahan has “for years denounced IVF.” In February, she told the Australian Financial Review that IVF is “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.” In a 2023 interview with The New Yorker, she told the outlet, “Many of the I.V.F. clinics are financially incentivized to offer you egg freezing and I.V.F. and not incentivized to offer you other fertility services.” In an essay for People published in 2022, she wrote “I believe IVF is sold irresponsibly, and in my own experience with natural childbirth has led me to understand that the fertility industry is deeply flawed.” While criticizing IVF, Shanahan has also called for research into things like sunlight exposure to help women have children. “I’m not sure that there has been a really thorough mitochondrial respiration study on the effects of two hours of morning sunlight on reproductive health. I would love to fund something like that,” she said during a 2023 panel with the National Academy of Medicine, a group she had given $100 million. The statement was met with laughs, to which she responded: “Yeah, let’s do it…I just have an intuition that could be interesting and maybe work.”
Elsewhere, it will perhaps not come as a surprise that Kennedy’s running mate has questions about vaccines, and takes umbrage with the term “anti-vaxxer.” Speaking to The New York Times earlier this year, she said “I do wonder about vaccine injuries.” While insisting she is “not an anti-vaxxer,” she told the outlet “I think there needs to be a space to have these conversations.” In an interview with Newsweek, she boldly suggested Kennedy is not anti-vaccine, despite the fact that, as CNN notes, “Kennedy is among the most prominent vaccine skeptics in the country and, through his role as the head of Children’s Health Defense, has helped spread falsehoods about vaccines, including the claim that they can lead to ‘injuries’.” In her interview with Newsweek, Shanahan said that she received a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and a booster and later suffered from “significant health issues.” “I don’t know if they’re related,” she said, “but I’d love to know.”
Before Shanahan was officially added to the ticket, she was a “major source” of funding—and creative input—for the Kennedy campaign ad that ran during the Super Bowl and was condemned by more than one member of the Kennedy family. Tony Lyons, a cochairman of the Kennedy-aligned super PAC that produced the commercial—which recreated a vintage JFK political ad from 1960—told the Times Shanahan was “the driving force behind the decision” to remake the spot.
Also, this is the one he can make money off of
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