RFK Jr. greeted by protesters during visit to Martha's Vineyard

Across Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday, well over 100 people protested Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s scheduled visit and his conspiratorial opposition to vaccines.

Vivian Spiro, of Edgartown, was one of those protesters — many sporting hand-drawn signs — who met Kennedy's motorcade at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

"I find Secretary Kennedy's policies reprehensible," Spiro said. "They're not based in science. They're going to be destructive to America's children in particular."

Protester Diane Whittier, of Oak Bluffs, is a psychiatric nurse.

"Vaccines have been proven over and over and over again to work," Whittier said. “It’s just so disturbing to me. As is everything that’s going on in Washington.”

Kennedy was on the island to meet with a federal tribal advisory committee in the town of Aquinnah, part of the ancestral land of the native Wampanoag people.

The annual meeting was closed to the press and the general public. But that didn't stop protesters from showing up both at the airport and the meeting location in Aquinnah.

“He has a really long, dangerous history of promoting misinformation and it undermines public health and scientific truth," said Nyssa Duarte, a nurse who runs the local tribal health clinic. "His views really don't reflect that of our tribe, of our tribal clinic, of our tribal members at large; he’s just not welcome here."

Each year, the Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee — a group of 17 regional tribal delegates — meets in a different location to discuss critical needs in their communities. The sitting HHS secretary typically attends.

This year's meeting, hosted by the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, is scheduled to run through Thursday.

In an interview with the Martha's Vineyard Gazette before the meeting, Aquinnah tribal council chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said it was "a privilege" to host the annual meeting on the island. She acknowledged the planned protests, and said Kennedy has a good working relationship with the tribe.

Kennedy’s arrival came as the medical community raised alarm about the Trump administration's unfounded statements about Tylenol, childhood vaccines and autism.

"I think he is a pseudo scientist," said Linda Vadász, of West Tisbury. "And I think that we need facts, not fiction."

Vadász said she was also there to mourn her friend  Myra Stark, who recently died of COVID.

Tuesday was also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year — a time for reflection, said Nancy Aronie, of Chilmark.

"I want to get into forgiveness, not hate," Aronie said. " We're in such a hateful time now, and [Kennedy is] just a wounded guy who didn't get what he needed; and we are recipients and victims of his misery."