It makes sense to approach some marketing efforts with skepticism. Scams, deepfakes, and deceptive social media posts are common, with people you don’t know seeking to profit from your behavior.

But should people extend this same skepticism to pediatricians who advise vaccines for children? Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said financial bonuses are driving such recommendations.

“Doctors are being paid to vaccinate, not to evaluate,” Kennedy said in an Aug. 8 video posted on the social platform X. “They’re pressured to follow the money, not the science.”

Doctors and public health officials have been fielding questions on this topic for years.

A close look at the process by which vaccines are administered shows pediatric practices make little profit — and sometimes lose money — on vaccines. Four experienced pediatricians told us evidence-based science and medicine drive pediatricians’ childhood vaccination recommendations. Years of research and vaccine safety data also bolster these recommendations.

Christoph Diasio, a pediatrician at Sandhills Pediatrics in North Carolina, said the argument that doctors profit off vaccines is counterintuitive.

“If it was really about all the money, it would be better for kids to be sick so you’d see more sick children and get to take care of more sick children, right?” he said.

Is Your Pediatrician Profiting Off Childhood Vaccines?

It costs money to stock, store, and administer a vaccine.

Pediatricians sometimes store thousands of dollars’ worth of vaccines in specialized medical-grade refrigeration units, which can be expensive. They pay to insure vaccines in case anything happens to them. Some practices buy thermostats that monitor vaccines’ temperature and backup generators to run the refrigerators in the event of a power outage. They also pay nursing staff to administer vaccines.

“Vaccines are hugely expensive,” said Jesse Hackell, a retired general pediatrician and the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Pediatric Workforce. “We lay out a lot of money up front.”

When a child with private insurance gets a vaccine, the pediatrician is paid for the vaccine product and its administration, Hackell said.

Many pediatricians also participate in a federal program that provides vaccines free of charge to eligible children whose parents can’t afford them. Participating in that program isn’t profitable because even though they get the vaccines for free, pediatricians store and insure them, and Medicaid reimbursements often don’t cover the costs. But many choose to participate and provide those vaccines anyway because it’s valuable for patients, Hackell said.

When discussing vaccine recommendations, pediatricians don’t make different recommendations based on how or if a child is insured, he said.

Jason Terk, a pediatrician at Cook Children’s Health Care System in Texas, said a practice’s ability to make a profit on vaccines depends on its situation.

Terk’s practice is part of a larger pediatric health care system, which means it doesn’t lose money on vaccines and makes a small profit, he said. Some small independent practices might not be able to secure terms with insurance companies that adequately pay for vaccines.

Suzanne Berman, a pediatrician at Plateau Pediatrics, a rural health clinic in Crossville, Tennessee, said that 75% of her practice’s patients have Medicaid and qualify for the Vaccines for Children program, which the practice loses money on. When she factored in private insurance companies’ payments, she estimated her practice roughly breaks even on vaccination.

“The goal is to not lose money on vaccines,” Terk said.

So What’s Driving Your Pediatrician’s Vaccine Recommendations?

Pediatricians typically recommend parents vaccinate their children following either the American Academy of Pediatrics’ or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended vaccine schedule.

Diasio said the driving force behind pediatric vaccine recommendations is straightforward: Trained physicians have seen kids die of vaccine-preventable diseases.

“I saw kids who died of invasive pneumococcal disease, which is what the Prevnar vaccine protects against,” Diasio said. “We remember those kids; we wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Still, your pediatrician will consider your child’s health holistically before making vaccine recommendations.

For example, a few children — less than 1% — have medical reasons they cannot receive a particular vaccine, Hackell said. This could include children with severe allergies to certain vaccine components or children who are immunosuppressed and could be at higher risk from live virus vaccines such as the measles or chickenpox vaccine.

“When people have questions about whether their kids should get vaccines, they really need to talk to their child’s doctor,” Diasio said. “Don’t get lost down a rabbit hole of the internet or on social media, which is programmed and refined to do whatever it can to keep you online longer.”

Hit with a defamation lawsuit, conservative commentator Candace Owens is not backing away from her baseless claims that France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, is a man.

Originally published by PolitiFact.

Responding to the lawsuit July 23, Owens said Brigitte Macron "is definitely a man," and called the Macrons’ lawsuit a public relations strategy.

"They don’t care if they win," Owens said. "This is about running it through the press."

French President Emmanuel Macron and the first lady filed the lawsuit more than a year after Owens initially made headlines for promoting the false claim that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux. (Trogneux is Brigitte’s older brother.)

The lawsuit alleges that, since March 2024, Owens repeatedly used the false statement "to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money," while disregarding "all credible evidence disproving her claim." The legal complaint said that after the Macrons requested a retraction, Owens retaliated by releasing an eight-part podcast series, "Becoming Brigitte."

The Macrons have experienced "relentless bullying on a worldwide scale," the lawsuit said.

Owens’ claim is one example of a wider trend of conspiracy theories targeting prominent women in politics and culture, including former first lady Michelle Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Conspiracy theory researchers say that’s because these women are influential, politically left-leaning and break gender stereotypes at a time when the conservative movement favors traditional gender roles.

Conspiracy theories target women seen as their political opposition

For nearly five years, conservative political commentators and social media users have circulated false claims that Michelle Obama was once a man. Despite PolitiFact and others’ repeated reporting about the baseless narrative, the conspiracy theory persists.

Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami political science professor who has written multiple books about conspiracy theories, said women such as Macron and Obama are targeted because of their status.

It’s rare for someone to accuse random, lesser-known people of a secret plot. "Conspiracy theories are generally thrown at power, and these are powerful people," Uscinski said.

Other women who’ve been the target of gender-focused conspiracy theories include:

• WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner: In 2022, Griner was detained in Russia and sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges. As Biden administration officials worked to return Griner to the U.S., social media users circulated false posts saying she was really a man.
• Harris: During her 2024 presidential run, X users shared the false claim that Harris was transgender.
• Queen Camilla: In late 2024, Facebook users circulated a manipulated video showing Camilla, Britain’s queen consort, saying she was "born a man."

Conspiracy theorists often focus on elites they dislike or view as a member of an opposition coalition, experts told PolitiFact.

Joel Penney, a Montclair State University communications professor, said these claims have been largely directed at women perceived to be politically left or center-left.

"Asserting that they’re literally disguising their true identity and they’re doing these things behind the scenes is a way of mapping fears and anxieties about broader gender issues in politics and society onto them personally," Penney said.

Gender-focused conspiracy theories linked to anti-transgender rhetoric

Gender-focused conspiracy theories have proliferated in recent years alongside increasing anti-transgender rhetoric and support for restrictive policies on trans people, experts said.

The term "transvestigating" describes when conspiracy theorists begin questioning a person’s gender and accusing them of being transgender, Penney said, and it’s become a common attack. GLAAD, a nonprofit advocacy group that works to counter discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in the media, describes the practice as an "example of anti-LGBTQ online hate and disinformation."

Throughout 2024, many Republican campaign advertisements focused on transgender people, particularly trans women participating in women’s sports.

This sort of anti-trans political rhetoric increased newfound suspicion toward women who don’t appear to conform to female gender norms, Penney said.

Michael Mark Cohen, an American studies and African American studies professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said women such as Macron, Obama, Griner and others were likely targeted because their talents, achievements and ambition break stereotypical gender norms.

Essentially, they undermine someone’s "‘correct’ or ‘natural’ gender roles," so they must secretly be men, he said.

Aria Halliday, a University of Kentucky women and gender studies professor, said these attacks are rooted in transphobia and, in the cases of women like Griner and Obama, racism. People pushing these narratives strive to perpetuate the "falsehood that women like Obama, Macron, and others are not women, therefore limiting the spectrum of what women can look like, do, and how they participate in society."

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.