Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Measles-dismisser, nepo-baby, bear cub-dumper, and vaccine skeptic, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was one of the president’s more questionable nominations. This is a significant achievement in itself when compared with other dangerously unsuitable candidates for high office, like Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth; Director of National Intelligence and credibly-accused Russian asset, Tulsi Gabbard; and FBI director and QAnon promoter, Kash Patel, who comes with his own enemies list.
The problem with putting Kennedy in charge of HHS, with power over Medicaid, Medicare, and the Centers for Disease Control, was summed up effectively by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in his opening statement for the confirmation hearing. After recounting the voluminous material staffers reviewed of Kennedy’s public statements Wyden concluded that: “The receipts show that Mr. Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, and charlatans, especially when it comes to the safety and efficacy of vaccines.”
In addition to receiving money from law firms for recommending plaintiffs for potential vaccine-related litigation against pharmaceutical companies Kennedy acted as chairman and chief legal counsel for the Children’s Health Defense Fund, a non-profit known for spreading vaccine misinformation. Wyden was unsparing about Kennedy’s vested interest in opposing vaccines: “This is the profile of somebody who chases money and influence wherever they lead, even if that means the deaths of children and other vulnerable people.”
Kennedy defended himself throughout his confirmation hearings by repeatedly claiming that he’s not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety,” and confirmed that all of his own children are vaccinated. Given his long, public history of questioning the efficacy of vaccines—including in Samoa prior to a measles outbreak that led to 83 deaths, mostly children—the question isn’t whether Kennedy really is anti-vaccine or not. The question is: what does pro-safety mean and what does it leave the door open to?
Similarly, Kennedy repeatedly promised to bring “radical transparency” to HHS. While safety and transparency seem like positive priorities, there’s enough space to spin them to his liking. Kennedy confirmed over and over in his hearings that he would do nothing as HHS Secretary that would make it difficult to get, or discourage people from taking, vaccines, but that he wouldn’t support vaccine mandates because he believes people should make their own choices.
He has also suggested assessing the safety of already-approved vaccines through double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, which would mean withholding proven vaccines from control groups, potentially exposing children to infectious disease. While such studies would be deeply unethical, Kennedy could stymie the distribution of available, effective vaccines by placing extra requirements for testing—all while claiming he was doing so in the interests of “safety” and “radical transparency.”
Indeed, when asked directly about studying already-approved vaccines Kennedy repeated his mantra “If confirmed, I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.” He gave the same response when asked a yes-or-no question about whether he believes that vaccines cause autism, a connection that has been thoroughly debunked. In his second hearing, he was hit with a battery of questions from senators about his belief in a link between vaccines and autism, and he refused to deny the link, even citing flawed research to claim that the link was valid.
War on ‘toxins’
What Kennedy did confirm he would do is take an active approach to dealing with chronic disease, pointing to the increasing rates of autism, and identifying obesity, diabetes, ADHD, cancer, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s, depression, and addiction as a worsening health crisis in the United States. Noting that the US spends more on healthcare than any other nation in the developed world, he attributed the high cost to chronic disease and emphasizing the need for prevention, not just treatment. Outlining areas where he would enhance prevention, Kennedy mentioned the availability of healthy food, investigating chemical additives in food supply, and reducing financial conflicts of interest in health agencies.
Again, while aspects of his plans may come across as positive or at least harmless, this focus on chronic disease and identifying poor diet, a tainted food supply, and regulatory conflicts of interest as causes, all point toward the underlying ideologies in Kennedy’s positions. These wellness ideologies posit that modern medicine only treats symptoms not causes of disease and that the healthcare system profits off sickness rather than helping people get better. Kennedy was fairly direct about this approach in his confirmation hearing, stating that he would “transition our system to one that does not incentivize sick care.” Senators pointed to his previous statements implying that sick children are profitable in the current healthcare system and others have noted that he’s posted on social media that the “FDA’s war on public health is about to end.”
In wellness ideologies, chronic disease is the outcome of the “standard American diet,” or SAD, which consists of too much sugar, salt, and fat. This is often the starting point for many who become interested in wellness—and it’s a fairly reasonable one—but these reasonable dietary concerns lead to accusations that agribusiness is purposefully polluting the food supply with unpronounceable chemicals—referred to vaguely as “toxins”—and that pharmaceutical companies are poisoning children with vaccines. They sell both the cause and the cure. In these ideologies, food and healthcare systems have been thoroughly corrupted. Kennedy’s statements that the FDA is corrupt have to be read through these ideological principles. Agribusiness and pharmaceutical companies could only get away with such a grand scheme if the regulatory agencies tasked with keeping them in line were actually in on the scheme.
But why would corporations and government agencies want to poison everyone else? The obvious answer is money, but vaccines, which prevent illness, are cheaper than treating infectious disease. If pharmaceutical companies were really just out to rip us off by deliberately sickening us en masse, why would they invest so much into researching, developing and manufacturing vaccines that prevent the illnesses their products would ostensibly treat?
The pharmaceutical industry is certainly not altruistic, and it has its fair share of predatory practices and scandals, but there’s simply no evidence of a conspiracy on this scale to make us ill.
This is where wellness ideologies can descend into conspiracy theories that suggest the “real” reason for these “toxic” vaccines is far darker. “They” are trying to kill us off to depopulate the world or to block our spiritual development in order to keep us enslaved in the current economic system. Wellness ideologies can dovetail into conspiracy theories, like the great reset which proliferated throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, about the origin of the coronavirus and the best way to treat it which spread rampantly online. Kennedy himself often refers obliquely to a range of health and medical conspiracy theories such as AIDS denial, claims that fluoride lowers IQ, and the belief that Wi-Fi and 5G are detrimental to our health.
Dining with big pharma
And yet, despite the corruption Kennedy has spent years accusing the pharmaceutical industry of, he and Donald Trump dined with CEOs from Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) at Mar-a-Lago in early December. It was subsequently reported that the very drug companies represented at the meeting expect the Trump administration to pause the Medicare drug price negotiations that will save seniors $1.5 billion in 2026 alone and taxpayers $100 billion over the next decade. When questioned by Senator Wyden, Kennedy claimed he couldn’t remember the meeting but reaffirmed that transparency was one of his core values.
Kennedy again claimed to support sound data and transparency with regard to vaccines when asked whether he would support and uphold the childhood immunization schedule. But once confirmed (along party lines, with the exception of polio survivor Mitch McConnell), Kennedy announced that HHS will examine the child immunization schedule. And, in addition to canceling an effective CDC flu shot campaign, he’s preparing to fire members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (which makes recommendations to the CDC on adult and childhood immunization schedules).
Rather than swallow Kennedy’s platitudes about transparency and safety at face value, it’s important to contextualize his rhetoric given both his track record and the wellness ideologies he advances. The recent “Make America Healthy Again” executive order prioritizing research on “the root causes of why Americans are getting sick” is a strong indication that, under Trump 2.0, US health policy will be driven by wellness ideologies. If so, we can expect to lose or see reduced access to proven treatments such as vaccines, antidepressants, and retrovirals for HIV, and to see health research funds redirected to the study of tenuous or discredited health issues like 5G, fluoride, and vaccines.
