RFK Jr. and the Twilight of Health and Science in the United States
With Trumpites calling the shots at virtually every layer of American government, the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. We drew attention to the appointments made to the cabinet before (MLRG.online, “Hovering on the Brink of Fascism.” November 5, 2025).
A veritable rogues gallery of superstition peddlers, misinformers, and conspiracy theorists is now firmly embedded in the offices of the American government. They enact initiatives and agendas based on ridiculous and pseudoscience.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was installed as Health and Human Services Director in a signal of the opening salvo in the Trumpites’ war on science. A detractor of many of modern medicine’s most significant advances, RFK is, intellectually speaking, barely a rung above the likes of Paula White-Cain. She is Trump’s so-called “spiritual advisor” who famously spoke in tongues and called on an army of angels to overturn the 2020 US election. It is especially concerning, then, that RFK lords over America’s vast infrastructure of critical research, emergency response, and health services. Especially as there are few – if any – checks to his authority. We previously discussed RFK’s and his choice of health administrators before (MLRG.online, ibid).
Further concerns on RFK’s lack of credentials continue to arise; for example, here from reporters from the Financial Times:
“That Kennedy is a strange choice to head public health is clear from a tirade the former environmental lawyer posted on X last month. In it, he accused the FDA, which would fall under his new remit, of being corrupt and of “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that… can’t be patented by Pharma”. Kennedy has questioned whether HIV causes Aids; repeated debunked claims that childhood vaccines may be linked to autism; and suggested that vaccines undergo inadequate testing.
Financial Times. “The new Republican war on science,” November 20, 2024.
It is no accident that the most pressing immediate worries arise from RFK’s blinkers on the need for safe vaccines, where possible, because of his mistaken and ardent belief in the supposed causal link between vaccines (in particular that against pertussis or whooping cough) and autism. This seriously flawed theory has been comprehensively dismissed (“Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism. Why Do Some People Think They Do?”; Public Health On Call; Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; March 19, 2025, and Jonathan D. Quick, MD, MPH and Heidi Larson, “The Vaccine-Autism Myth Started 20 Years Ago. Here’s Why It Still Endures Today”; Time, February 28, 2018).
Therefore, the recent resurgence of measles in America constitutes the first test of RFK Jr.’s leadership while at the helm of HHS. True to form, his initial response has thus far included healthy quantities of denialism and unconventional therapy. Following the measles-related deaths of two children in West Texas – the first such fatalities in over a decade – Kennedy was quick to dismiss early concern. He stated, “We have measles outbreaks every year.” (CIDRAP, “Kennedy minimizes measles outbreak in wake of Texas death”). He later advocated for the use of Vitamin A and cod liver oil as an alternative treatment for the virus. This prompted a spike in Vitamin A toxicity (hypervitaminosis A) in the aforementioned affected community. (DW.com, “RFK Jr.’s measles ‘cure’ sickens Texas kids amid outbreak.”)
Only very recently has he been forced to finally suggest that the MMR vaccine is an effective prevention for measles infection. Although he still caters to the anti-vaccination contingent in his statement.
Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health. All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine. The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons. [emphasis added]
Fox News. “ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Measles outbreak is call to action for all of us.”
The fallout of RFK Jr.’s mismanagement of the situation is significant. A top-ranking spokesperson at HHS resigned in early March, privately citing Kennedy’s “muted” response to the evolving crisis. (Politico. “Top HHS spokesperson quits after clashing with RFK Jr.” ) More importantly, the human toll of the rising numbers – undoubtedly the culmination of decades of America’s rampant vaccination skepticism – of measles cases continues to evolve. The CDC reports six measles outbreaks and a total of over 700 documented cases of the virus already this year, up from a total of 285 cases for the entire year of 2024. This is despite the US government declaring that the virus was eradicated in 2025. (CDC. “Measles Cases and Outbreaks.”)
Despite his early failures, Kennedy is moving forward with an agenda that will, in all likelihood, fabricate a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. Kennedy has already explicitly stated that the “cause” of autism will be found to be “environmental” in nature, revealing a methodology that effectively turns the scientific method on its head.
With his overtly predetermined outcome in hand, Kennedy will effectively establish a precedent through which he can attack the established science behind immunizations, converting vaccine skepticism into a matter of public policy, ultimately placing the health and safety of millions at risk.
Under pressure from both RFK Jr. and his counterparts at the helm of DOGE, funding for vaccination initiatives is dwindling around the United States, as doctors and epidemiologists warn of increased rates of infection and diminished defenses against new threats.
This anti-science approach has already culminated in the resignation of top nutritional scientist Kevin Hall – because he was being censored. His research implicated ultra-processed foods in addictive over-eating (Alice Callaghan; “Leading Nutrition Scientist Departs N.I.H., Citing Censorship” April 16, 2025; New York Times)
Nevertheless, the Trump administration and its vehement followers at all levels of government continue to lean into the use of pseudoscience and superstition to craft both policy and law. We will present further evidence of this in subsequent essays.
