RFK Jr.’s shock treatment of US public health will be held accountable

During his confirmation hearing, Robert Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and human services, pledged that he is not anti-vaccine.

However, he will have to answer for a number of drastic actions that call into question his word and threaten to undermine health protections that have saved millions of lives during another Senate hearing on Thursday.

Since becoming America’s top health official, Kennedy has purged top government vaccine experts, fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and terminated research on some lifesaving Vaccines.

Life expectancy has increased over generations, yet the national pro-vaccine consensus has broken apart. For instance, Florida moved on Wednesday to repeal constitutionally mandated vaccination laws for schoolchildren, and three Democratic-controlled states united to provide public health recommendations, arguing that federal agencies that were formerly regarded as the gold standard in the world could no longer be relied upon.

Already, the consequences for the health of Americans look enormous.

Thursday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing will be an early test of whether the nation’s sharply divided politics will bear Kennedy’s radical policy changes and of the strength of President Donald Trump’s support for the lightning rod HHS chief. To retaliate against Trump for selecting Kennedy, Democrats will attempt to start the process of making him politically radioactive.

Committee Republicans must decide between ignoring decades of established scientific knowledge and endorsing Kennedy’s policies, some of which are well-liked by their party’s constituency.

The focus will be particularly on Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who, in his other role as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, assisted in getting Kennedy confirmed and claimed to have obtained guarantees that Kennedy’s anti-vaxer past would not influence policy.

Cassidy, who faces a GOP primary in his 2026 reelection bid, could be torn between a desire not to anger Trump and a medical professional’s reverence for science. The two-term Louisiana senator declined to tell CNN’s Manu Raju this week whether he regrets his vote to confirm Kennedy or whether he trusts him.

Democrats have demanded Kennedy’s resignation over purges of CDC leaders. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and member of the Finance Committee, issued a warning: Those who do not put an end to RFK Jr.’s “dangerous anti-vaccine crusade” would not look good in history.

Kennedy has become the most urgent example of how Trump’s attempts to dismantle pillars of the establishment — in this case, the public health system — could deeply change the country, potentially in dangerous ways.

Important vaccine decisions are now being dictated by politics.

According to former top CDC officials, RFK Jr.’s anti-scientific beliefs that support Trump’s political goals are already destroying infrastructure that has saved millions of lives.

However, in the short run, Trump may benefit politically by their well-publicized concerns. Making bureaucrats and elite luminaries squeal and making Democrats defend institutions that many Americans feel have failed them are key components of his insurgent political goal.

However, having access to vaccines can mean the difference between life and death. According to former subordinates, Kennedy is attacking important organizations and procedures while rejecting the scientific knowledge of government scientists. Their cautions indicate that the stakes are higher than Trump’s short-term electoral future.

Following Kennedy’s dismissal of freshly confirmed CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez last week due to disagreements over vaccine policy and her refusal to remove employees, a collection of former CDC directors or acting directors cautioned in a New York Times op-ed Monday that Kennedy was jeopardizing the health of every American. His acts were “unlike anything our country had ever experienced,” they said.

Dr. Tom Frieden, one of them, stated on CNN’s “Inside Politics” Sunday that Trump and Kennedy were determined to discredit, divert attention from, and eliminate vaccines as well as other health safeguards. Frieden declared, “We are less safe.”

Along with many current and former HHS employees, a coalition of health industry groups, including the American Public Health Association, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, demanded Kennedy’s resignation on Wednesday. They warned that forcing CDC experts to “turn their back on decades of sound science” makes “Americans less safe in a multitude of ways.”

However, RFK Jr. asserted in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that he was reviving public trust in the CDC. He added, “Mission creep, politicized science, and bureaucratic inertia have eroded that purpose and squandered public trust.”

Kennedy maintained that the CDC has applied what he refers to as “gold standard” science and has not been “pro-vax” or “anti-vax.” However, in remarks that will raise concerns, he claimed that Americans choose Trump to decide health policy despite his lack of medical training and his promotion of disproven Covid-19 treatments. Additionally, he alluded to purported connections between antibiotics and immunizations and chronic illnesses that specialists deny.

For a moment when the GOP is suspicious, Kennedy is the man.

A combination of political factors led to Kennedy’s rise to prominence in American public health. He was an obvious ally of Trump, whom he endorsed in 2024, as a result of his break with the Democrats and his independent presidential campaign. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine past was also a good fit for the times, as he won approval from Trump’s voters over his condemnation of measures used by government public health officials to try to protect Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During dark months in 2020, prolonged school closures, advice on masking, the temporary shuttering of the economy and social distancing clashed with the individualist streak among many Americans and became a rallying call for conservative politicians.

In hindsight, several of the suggestions made by senior officials who were gradually learning about a new coronavirus appear to have been incorrect. Additionally, some voters objected to what they perceived to be the arrogant demeanor of certain authorities, which fueled a preexisting mistrust among Trump supporters of specialists and those they perceive to be liberal elites.

It is impossible to overstate how skeptical Trump supporters are about US public health organizations, and this sentiment is evident on social media.

Had it not been for the epidemic, RFK Jr. most likely would never have made it to HHS. His long-held unconventional beliefs, receptivity to critics of the medical establishment, selective interpretation of research, and belief that widely used vaccines are occasionally unsafe or improperly evaluated seem to have influenced his choices.

Because he capitalizes on anti-elite ire and the pandemic’s lingering political repercussions, he is consequently politically advantageous to Trump.

The medical world is more supportive of Kennedy’s mission to “Make America Healthy Again” by reducing dependency on processed foods, emphasizing exercise, and getting rid of additives like food dyes than they are of his vaccination heresy. Importantly, it is also well-liked by a broad spectrum of voters, including independents and suburban mothers, who the president might not otherwise be able to reach. If Republican turnout is low without Trump on the ballot, this group may be crucial in close races in the midterm elections the following year.

However, there is mounting indication that, despite Kennedy’s popularity among Trump’s supporters, drastic measures to limit vaccines may turn out to be widely unpopular, as CNN’s Aaron Blake reported on Wednesday.

RFK must make a crucial choice on American healthcare.

In addition to Thursday’s hearing, Kennedy will soon have a greater influence on the health of the country. After spending years promoting theories that have been refuted by several scientific studies that link autism to childhood vaccinations, he promised Trump information this month about the sources of the disorder. The nomination of a new permanent CDC chief is expected to be a turning point that will demonstrate whether Republican senators are capable of protecting public health when doing so might necessitate a breach with their resentful president.

We’ll be closely monitoring the CDC’s new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ initial discussions. Because its recommendations affect which vaccinations insurance companies and programs like Medicaid will fund, the group of independent experts has enormous ability to change the face of American health care. In June, Kennedy dismissed the panel’s 17 members and selected a few replacements who agreed with his doubts about vaccines.

The next HHS secretary had promised to “work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems” and to keep the vaccine advisory group “without changes,” Cassidy said in support of Kennedy’s confirmation vote. The CDC advisory committee’s next meeting should be delayed until “significant oversight has been conducted,” according to Cassidy.

Kennedy has also taken additional actions to limit vaccination supply. The administration restricted access to the most recent Covid-19 vaccine last week. Kennedy has also terminated federal funding for mRNA vaccines — a category of therapies that ended the Covid-19 emergency and would allow for the swift development of new treatments in the event of a new pandemic. This is in addition to billions of dollars in halted research and development as part of Trump’s assault on elite universities, which has hampered research on diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s

Trump wants the Covid-19 vaccines he disparages to be credited.

The conflict between conservative politics and medical science is best shown by Trump. He has openly lamented in recent weeks that he has not been able to reap the full political benefits of one of his first term’s major accomplishments, the Operation Warp Speed campaign to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.

Trump simultaneously praised the immunizations and questioned their legitimacy on Truth Social. He said the CDC was being “ripped apart” over the problem and demanded that pharmaceutical companies explain their success. The belief that they are a miracle that has saved millions of lives is widespread. Others disagree!” he wrote.

Millions of lives were saved by the immunizations, according to numerous studies. In response to Trump, Pfizer provided a list of 200 press announcements and remarks along with 27 peer-reviewed scientific articles that demonstrated the point. Moderna and Novavax, two other vaccine manufacturers, also provided comprehensive lists of safety and efficacy data.

The administration’s constant raising of doubt about vaccines can be hugely damaging. Recent measles outbreaks have demonstrated the risk of even a little drop in vaccination rates. RFK Jr. showed some support for measles vaccines but also called them a “personal” choice.

It might be extremely harmful if there is a broader political shift against vaccines. Florida’s proposal to remove vaccination requirements from schools, for example, might expose those too young or vulnerable to receive the immunizations to diseases like polio, measles, or tetanus, in addition to putting children at risk of not receiving their shots.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general of Florida, stated on Wednesday that the ruling was meant to end what he called “mandates,” and that it may inspire other conservative states to follow suit. According to him, scheduling vaccinations “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

Trump’s populist conservatism is typified by this defense of changes based on political rather than scientific arguments.

Trump’s disruption has minimal immediate cost on many areas. The impact of dismissing experts at the Department of Education, for instance, is difficult to measure. Furthermore, the impact of eliminating the US Agency for International Development on HIV/AIDS rates in Africa will never be seen to the majority of Americans.

However, the effects of the attack on US public health procedures spearheaded by one of Trump’s most startling Cabinet selections, RFK Jr., might soon become brutally evident.