RFK Jr. and American Health Science

Introduction

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived at the Department of Health and Human Services in February 2025 carrying his family's name and a deep skepticism toward the institutions he was now asked to lead. What followed was not merely a shift in policy direction - it was a systematic dismantling of the scientific infrastructure underpinning American public health.

"The claims of Robert F Kennedy Jr are very damaging given they do not follow scientific evidence."

Prof Melinda Mills, Oxford University

The moves were swift and sweeping. Thousands of HHS jobs were eliminated. Billions in research funding were frozen or cancelled. NIH indirect cost reimbursements to universities were slashed from above 50% to a flat 15%, effectively gutting research programs across the country. Kennedy signaled a redirect away from epidemiological and biomedical science toward what he called preventive and holistic alternatives - a pivot that alarmed scientists who saw decades of incremental discovery at risk.

Vaccines became the sharpest flashpoint. Despite insisting he was "not anti-vaccine," Kennedy cancelled NIH studies on mRNA vaccines and pandemic preparedness, hired a vaccine skeptic disciplined for practicing medicine without a license to reinvestigate the long-debunked autism theory, and made public claims that the measles vaccine causes deaths every year - a statement directly contradicted by infectious disease experts. Under his watch, the CDC's advisory committee weakened COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and voted against recommending the MMRV shot for young children.

The consequences were measurable. By mid-2025, the U.S. recorded over 2,200 measles cases across 45 states - the highest in more than 30 years - with two children and one adult dead. Measles, eliminated in 2000, had returned. By 2026, cases were on pace to eclipse even that grim record. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who had supported Kennedy's confirmation, publicly stated that vaccine trust had worsened "due to false statements about safety and efficacy."

Kennedy's instincts on ultra-processed food and pharmaceutical conflicts of interest are not without merit, and some of his initiatives drew bipartisan support. But these reasonable threads have been woven into a tapestry of institutional destruction. The central irony of his tenure: an agenda premised on restoring gold-standard science launched its flagship MAHA report with citations to studies that did not exist.

History will judge this period as a stress test for the relationship between democratic governance and scientific authority. Kennedy inherited institutions that were genuinely imperfect. His stated goal was to rebuild public trust. Instead, by elevating doubt as policy, he may have deepened the very crisis he claimed to be solving.